In a recent Spacing article, called Pollution and the fall and rise of urbanism, Dylan Reid argues that one of the reasons why urbanism declined in the 20th century was because of industrial pollution. (There are, of course, other contributing factors beyond just pollution.)
This article is the first time I have come across a study supporting the widely held belief that pollution and prevailing windows are the reasons for why the east sides of many former industrial cities are poorer than the west sides. Here is more on that from the article:
People recognized and understood that pollution had an impact on them, and they tried to avoid it if they could afford to do so. Have you noticed, for example, how in so many cities (Toronto included), the east side is poorer than the west side? It’s because the prevailing winds in Europe and North America are west to east, and they blow pollution to the east side. A fascinating study by economists Stephan Heblich, Alex Trew and Yanos Zylbergerg quantified this effect, identifying how 19th century pollution was dispersed eastwards and showing that the most polluted areas were also the poorest.
What the authors discovered is that not only did pollution cause a geographic sorting based on wealth, but that there’s also a certain degree of persistence to it. This makes sense if you think about it. Pollution in our cities has waned significantly and yet here we are still remarking and talking about east vs. west.
It goes to show you just how long lasting the impacts of our city building decisions can be.
“The hard truth is that many mid-sized cities won’t win the future because they are stuck on a suburban growth model. If the future is green and walkable, they will be left behind.”
The model city that is held up is Portland – a terrific mid-sized city of only 640,000 people that has used progressive land use policies to build a livable and dense urban center. (In all fairness, the Portland MSA has over 2.4 million people.)
Now, if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I have a penchant for dense urban centers. I live and I work downtown. And I would happily trade square footage for a more sensible commute and lower transportation costs.
But after I read the article, I couldn’t help but think that progressive land use policies, alone, aren’t enough. Cities, like social networks, experience
Amazon released its shortlist of HQ2 cities this morning. Below are the 20 metropolitan areas. They were selected from 238 bids, so this shortlist represents 8.4% of the original pool.
In a recent Spacing article, called Pollution and the fall and rise of urbanism, Dylan Reid argues that one of the reasons why urbanism declined in the 20th century was because of industrial pollution. (There are, of course, other contributing factors beyond just pollution.)
This article is the first time I have come across a study supporting the widely held belief that pollution and prevailing windows are the reasons for why the east sides of many former industrial cities are poorer than the west sides. Here is more on that from the article:
People recognized and understood that pollution had an impact on them, and they tried to avoid it if they could afford to do so. Have you noticed, for example, how in so many cities (Toronto included), the east side is poorer than the west side? It’s because the prevailing winds in Europe and North America are west to east, and they blow pollution to the east side. A fascinating study by economists Stephan Heblich, Alex Trew and Yanos Zylbergerg quantified this effect, identifying how 19th century pollution was dispersed eastwards and showing that the most polluted areas were also the poorest.
What the authors discovered is that not only did pollution cause a geographic sorting based on wealth, but that there’s also a certain degree of persistence to it. This makes sense if you think about it. Pollution in our cities has waned significantly and yet here we are still remarking and talking about east vs. west.
It goes to show you just how long lasting the impacts of our city building decisions can be.
“The hard truth is that many mid-sized cities won’t win the future because they are stuck on a suburban growth model. If the future is green and walkable, they will be left behind.”
The model city that is held up is Portland – a terrific mid-sized city of only 640,000 people that has used progressive land use policies to build a livable and dense urban center. (In all fairness, the Portland MSA has over 2.4 million people.)
Now, if you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I have a penchant for dense urban centers. I live and I work downtown. And I would happily trade square footage for a more sensible commute and lower transportation costs.
But after I read the article, I couldn’t help but think that progressive land use policies, alone, aren’t enough. Cities, like social networks, experience
Amazon released its shortlist of HQ2 cities this morning. Below are the 20 metropolitan areas. They were selected from 238 bids, so this shortlist represents 8.4% of the original pool.
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Columbus, OH
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Indianapolis, IN
Los Angeles, CA
Miami, FL
Montgomery County, MD
Nashville, TN
Newark, NJ
New York City, NY
Brandon Donnelly
Daily insights for city builders. Published since 2013 by Toronto-based real estate developer Brandon Donnelly.
. That’s why there’s so much talk these days of winner-take-all urbanism.
All of this is not to say that progressive urban policies are a bad thing. Quite the opposite. I just think there are many other factors at play if we’re talking about taming the hegemony of our global cities.
Northern Virginia, VA
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Raleigh, NC
Toronto, ON
Washington D.C.
I saw some people on Twitter say that they were surprised to see Toronto and Miami on this list. I was not. If you remember, I publicly predicted on this blog that Toronto would be selected for Amazon HQ2.
That said, I thought it would be fun to guess at an even shorter list from Amazon’s shortlist. I have no knowledge of Amazon’s actual selections process, but if I had to guess, here is who I would cross off the list:
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Columbus, OH
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Indianapolis, IN
Los Angeles, CA
Miami, FL
Montgomery County, MD
Nashville, TN
Newark, NJ
New York City, NY
Northern Virginia, VA
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Raleigh, NC
Toronto, ON
Washington D.C.
That leaves us with a list that looks like this:
Boston, MA
Miami, FL
Montgomery County, MD
Newark, NJ
Northern Virginia, VA
Toronto, ON
Washington D.C.
So why this list? I’m probably wrong, but my reasons are as follows:
- I think Amazon will opt for a metro area on eastern time.
- There seems to be a predilection for areas around Washington D.C., so I left Montgomery County and Northern Virginia.
- As wonderful as it is, New York City feels too center ice for Amazon – at least in my view. But maybe Newark places them in the catchment area.
- The area needs to be of a certain scale so Amazon doesn’t overpower it and they have enough human capital to draw from.
- Miami is my sleeper bet. Most people think of it simply as a resort town, but there’s a huge percentage of foreign born residents and powerful arts/design scene.
- Talent is number one, which is why I left Boston and Toronto and why I continue to believe in Toronto. Toronto is more dynamic than Boston.
If I had to pick just three from the above shortlist, my bets would be, in alphabetical order: Boston, Toronto, and Washington D.C. What are yours?
network effects
. That’s why there’s so much talk these days of winner-take-all urbanism.
All of this is not to say that progressive urban policies are a bad thing. Quite the opposite. I just think there are many other factors at play if we’re talking about taming the hegemony of our global cities.
Northern Virginia, VA
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Raleigh, NC
Toronto, ON
Washington D.C.
I saw some people on Twitter say that they were surprised to see Toronto and Miami on this list. I was not. If you remember, I publicly predicted on this blog that Toronto would be selected for Amazon HQ2.
That said, I thought it would be fun to guess at an even shorter list from Amazon’s shortlist. I have no knowledge of Amazon’s actual selections process, but if I had to guess, here is who I would cross off the list:
Atlanta, GA
Austin, TX
Boston, MA
Chicago, IL
Columbus, OH
Dallas, TX
Denver, CO
Indianapolis, IN
Los Angeles, CA
Miami, FL
Montgomery County, MD
Nashville, TN
Newark, NJ
New York City, NY
Northern Virginia, VA
Philadelphia, PA
Pittsburgh, PA
Raleigh, NC
Toronto, ON
Washington D.C.
That leaves us with a list that looks like this:
Boston, MA
Miami, FL
Montgomery County, MD
Newark, NJ
Northern Virginia, VA
Toronto, ON
Washington D.C.
So why this list? I’m probably wrong, but my reasons are as follows:
- I think Amazon will opt for a metro area on eastern time.
- There seems to be a predilection for areas around Washington D.C., so I left Montgomery County and Northern Virginia.
- As wonderful as it is, New York City feels too center ice for Amazon – at least in my view. But maybe Newark places them in the catchment area.
- The area needs to be of a certain scale so Amazon doesn’t overpower it and they have enough human capital to draw from.
- Miami is my sleeper bet. Most people think of it simply as a resort town, but there’s a huge percentage of foreign born residents and powerful arts/design scene.
- Talent is number one, which is why I left Boston and Toronto and why I continue to believe in Toronto. Toronto is more dynamic than Boston.
If I had to pick just three from the above shortlist, my bets would be, in alphabetical order: Boston, Toronto, and Washington D.C. What are yours?
