Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Economics

The Auto Industry Wants Your Thanks

By Anne Lutz Fernandez | Apr 24, 2012 | No Comments

Feeling warmer and fuzzier about the auto industry bailout? With the help of the Obama reelection campaign, the industry is convincing more Americans that the $80 billion they forked over to save it were dollars well spent. In the latest Pew poll, the public responded more positively toward the bailout than ever before, with 56 […]

Memo to Chris Quinn: New York Voters Like Livable Streets

By Brad Aaron | Mar 20, 2012 | 6 Comments

Christine Quinn is not known as a politician who shies away from shying away, but it might be time to ditch her public indifference toward NYC DOT’s street safety and public space program. Monday evening, the Times reported on a Times Square Alliance study that, Great Recession notwithstanding, shows booming growth since 2007. Currently, the […]

New Urbanists: No Economic Recovery Without Smart Growth

By Angie Schmitt | Oct 6, 2011 | No Comments

What happened to the United States over the past several years is most commonly described as a recession. By the technical definition of the word we’re two years into a recovery. But it sure doesn’t seem that way. Meanwhile, a growing chorus of intellectual leaders says the country is experiencing something different than a normal […]

The Incredible Shrinking Megastore: Retailers Think Outside the Big Box

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 15, 2011 | No Comments

They lord over empty parking lots in Hazard, Kentucky; Twinsburg, Ohio; and Lewiston, Washington like the ruins of a lost civilization. Vacant Walmart stores are slowly decomposing in more and more American towns these days. More than 100 of them have been memorialized as part of the group Flickr pool known smugly as “They Sold […]

Chamber of Commerce: Empty Asphalt = Good Transportation Performance

By Tanya Snyder | Jul 25, 2011 | No Comments

The Chamber of Commerce released its annual Transportation Performance Index (TPI) last week [PDF], and you can tell it’s due for a total overhaul, because according to the Index, recession-battered 2009 was a banner year for transportation performance. Using 2009 data, the Chamber, a powerful lobbying group that represents millions of American businesses, determined that […]

The Once and Future Auto Bailouts

By Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez | Jul 6, 2011 | No Comments

You’d think the Obama campaign had confused Michigan and Ohio with Iowa and New Hampshire. As his 2012 Republican challengers flooded early primary states last month, the President instead headed to where he could stand beside beaming auto executives and watch proud workers toiling on once-idle assembly lines. The Obama administration and the industry have […]

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