During the past few decades, "industrial policy" was an epithet, and you still won't see Obama going around calling his "green jobs" projects industrial policy in speeches any time soon. But some think it's time to shed the stigma, and the flagship Obama industrial policy seems to be electric … [Read more...]
FRA interview
I'll (hopefully) be doing an interview with someone at the Federal Railroad Administration (probably a PR person, but since its via email, hopefully they'll be able to go ask bureaucrats and engineers the answers to some technical questions) for Streetsblog DC next week, so, if you've got any … [Read more...]
“The art of doing well with one dollar, which any bungler can do with two after a fashion”
A paragraph on what we might today call "good transit" in Railroaded: What distinguished railroads from the natural geography through which they ran was their centrality to measures of value; they transformed everything around them. There is no such thing as a badly placed river on a mountain, … [Read more...]
PSA
I've you have any interesting in Philadelphia or architectural history, you should be reading Philaphilia (scroll down past the weird drawing – I know). I think the Empty Lot of the Week feature (most recent one here) is my favorite. That is all. … [Read more...]
Then and now, financial ruin edition
So I bought Richard White's Railroaded based on the interview Emily blogged about earlier, and so far I'm enjoying it. It can be a bit polemical ("He was an eclectic hater who hated people who often hated one another") and by page 34 I've already gotten lost a few times in railroad finance jargon, … [Read more...]
When does local industrial policy succeed?
Here's something to keep in mind when you hear mayors making plans for things like designated green energy zones or tech clusters: Q: Has anything surprised you about downtown's recovery?A: This was always a financial center. Now we have a lease for a million square feet from Condé Nast. That … [Read more...]
Some notes on slums and free markets
Recently I've been seeing a lot of articles about slums (the NYT on Gurgaon, India, and the Guardian on Cairo), and inevitably the phrase "free market" gets thrown around. And as it should – so-called "slums" often have very minimal active governance, and as a result they often have very dynamic … [Read more...]
Where have I been?
I (Stephen) have been focused on trying to find a job recently (speaking of which – if anyone's got any freelance or permanent work or knows of anyone who might, I'm interested! smithsj@gmail.com), so as you can see, posting has dropped off. Adam also hasn't been posting much lately, but, as you may … [Read more...]