Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

The Role Of The Law In The Availability Of Public Transit And Affordable Housing In Atlanta’S West End, Elliott Lipinsky

ELLIOTT LIPINSKY

The Federal Transit Administration (FTA) is a branch of the U.S. Department of Transportation that administers federal funds and provides technical assistance for the support of locally operated public transit systems. MARTA / Atlanta metro area are part of FTA Region IV (the Southeast). FTA would be involved, for instance, in financing the federal grant monies discussed above. But actual regulation of operations (i.e., what MARTA does each day, or what MARTA will plan to do regionally) is more closely regulated by Georgia agencies.

Until recently, the Atlanta metropolitan area had no powerful central agency to coordinate regional transit. The …

Book Review: Edward L. Glaeser, Triumph Of The City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, And Happier (The Penguin Press 2011), David J. Reiss

David J Reiss

It is always a bit unnerving to read someone else’s love letters, but even more so, when you have the same object of desire. Edward Glaeser’s TRIUMPH OF THE CITY is a love letter to cities and to New York City in particular. Glaeser provides a theoertical framework of the city, arguing that “Cities are the absence of physical space between people and companies. They are proximity, density, closeness.”

Glaeser prescribes three simple rules to protect the vitality of the urban environment: First, cities should replace the current lengthy and uncertain permitting process with a simple system of fees. Second, …

Sprawl In Canada And The United States, Michael Lewyn

Michael E Lewyn

The purpose of this Article is to ascertain whether (1) suburban sprawl is as widespread in Canadian metropolitan areas as in their American counterparts, and (2) Canadian government policies, and in particular Canadian zoning law and transportation policies, encourage sprawl. The article concludes that Canadian metropolitan areas are in fact somewhat less sprawling than most of their American counterparts, but that in Canada, as in the United States, government land use regulation and government transportation policy do favor sprawl to some extent. For example, in both nations municipal zoning regulations, by limiting density and forcing landowners to build parking lots, …