Here are few things we've been reading this week.
- How Tasteless Suburbs Become Beloved Urban Neighborhoods: No, your single-family neighborhood wasn't built with mass affordability in mind. Here's what the people watching neighborhood change in the past thought.
- On Bungalows' History, Urban Density & Neighborhood Change: Kevin Davis with Durham's Bull City Rising talks about the relevance of the above Atlantic article in Durham. He also gives Chapel Hill a shoutout:
Most importantly, though, Hertz nails a point I've been fretting about in the recent debates on Durham change: the same people who are most worried about the Durham-character-and-neighborhood impact caused by the addition of thousands of units of new apartments, pocket neighborhoods, condo developments, and increases in density, are the same people by and large who are worried about the rate of price increases and low-affordability in Durham neighborhoods.
Yet restricting housing stock, well-meaning as it might seem, is a guaranteed fast-track to low affordability. (Hi, the Dystopia of Chapel Hill!)
- An NC Tax Plan That's an Exercise in Villany: Expanding sales tax on some services but not others directly targets lower-income North Carolinians.
- When It Comes to Transit Use, Destination Density Matters More Than Where You Live: Designing effective regional transit means focusing a lot on where people work as opposed to where they live.
- Is Gentrification a Human Rights Violation? Does the kind of displacement caused by gentrification violate basic human rights?
- Tax cuts, transit funding among key issues for Charlotte leaders: Charlotte leaders including two GOP state legislators, the CEO of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce, and the Chair of the State Transportation Board, a real estate executive, oppose the cap that limits state expenditures for light rail projects to $500,000. They will continue to advocate for the removal of the cap during the NCGA short session in April.
- Nancy Oates Insulted Violence Survivors: Chapel Hill resident Jenny Thompson talks about her experience reading one of Chapel Hill Town Council candidate Nancy Oates' blog posts in which Oates compared a Council decision to sexual assault. Oates has responded in the comments to this article, and Council member Donna Bell has posted her own response on her Facebook page.
