Jonathan Coppage
New York, United States
Urbanist. F1 fan, NCSU+UChicago alum,✞. Tweets are my own.
To be clear: I don't actually know anything, value my tweets accordingly
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Articles by Jonathan Coppage
When Older Is Better
Ours appears to be a digital age. Everywhere we go, our lives are mediated through digital devices. Our images, our sounds, our voices, our memories are taken and transformed into one selfsame language of binary code: ones and zeros. Zeros and ones. It is a marvel of human genius and technology that we can accomplish so many variegated things through this one irreducible mode of on and off. Off and on.
Trump Infrastructure Plan: Cost Will be an Issue. Here’s Why.
The Brooklyn Bridge, January 12, 2018. (Shannon Stapleton/Reuters) Why do bridges cost more in America? From President Trump’s Camp David retreat with cabinet officials and congressional leaders at the beginning of this year, word emerged that the president and his advisers are divided on the best policy for infrastructure.
Eric Holder Puts Corporate Dope on the Table
Yesterday, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the latest in a series of massive, multi-billion-dollar settlements extracted from Wall Street’s largest banks as punishment for their role in the subprime mortgage bubble and bust that played a role in collapsing the economy in 2008.
Robot Employment Survival 101
Fear not the rise of the machines? That appears to be the advice given by MIT economist David H. Autor in a paper he recently presented at the Kansas City Fed’s symposium in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.
Are Duck Dynasty Fans Duped, or in on the Joke?
For all the outrage, indignation, and general tumult over the TV show “Duck Dynasty” and its starring family that took place over the holiday season, the one thing almost no one charged was that the Robertson clan were fakes.
As Detroit Prepares for Clear-Cutting, Signs of Hope
Yesterday an Obama administration-convened task force released what the New York Times called “perhaps the most elaborate survey of decay conducted in any large America[n] city,” detailing the pervasiveness of perceived blight in the Motor City. The Detroit Blight Removal Task Force surveyed 377,603 properties, and recommended 40,077 for demolition, 38,429 for further review.
Won't You Be My Neighbor?
In 1991, a young married couple with a two-month-old baby girl moved into the distressed Herron-Morton neighborhood of Indianapolis, Indiana. While they had some policy knowledge about urban challenges (Bill Taft had recently obtained his masters in urban planning, and Joanna had worked in a federal agency), the couple possessed little hands-on experience. On top of that, they had no working plumbing or heat in their Indy home.
Joel Kotkin Fears Conservatives Against Suburban Sprawl
Joel Kotkin warns of a dark, rising tide: conservative skeptics of suburbia. Roger Scruton’s aesthetic defense of city centers and use-agnostic “side constraints” are a Tory plot to Europeanize America. The New Urbanism-philia of Matt Lewis, the late Paul Weyrich, and other, nameless conservatives like those circulating around here at New Urbs is a helpless parroting of inaccurate liberal stereotypes.
Transit Gives Millennials an Off-Ramp From Cars
For generations of young Americans, a driver’s license stood as the ticket to freedom, freeing teenagers from the watchful parental eyes that accompanied being dropped off at bowling alleys, bookstores, and boyfriends’ houses. Living in a sprawling, vast country, particularly one whose postwar planning consensus had been dedicated to subsidizing suburban sprawl, a car was often the only feasible way to connect their geographically disparate destinations.
Can Main Street Poach Talent From Wall Street?
James Fallows of The Atlantic has been touring the United States with his wife, stopping in small and mid-size cities to try and get a picture of what is actually working in American politics. He says they’ve found it in the nation’s mayors, who are exercising a strong hand of leadership to bring the best insights of urban planning and town development to their constituents, and revitalizing even economically stricken towns like former textile stalwart Greenville, South Carolina.
Remembering the Retail Worker After Christmas
I hope each of you had a very merry Christmas if you celebrate, and excellent Chinese food should you not. Many of us will be climbing out of a coma induced by a combination of hearty dinners, abundant presents, and omnipresent family, pulling back up to work or sifting through the shattered remains of domestic order that our relatives left in their wake.
Thanksgiving Doorbusters Backfire on Big Retail
This Thanksgiving, Wal-Mart opened at 6 pm, as did Macy’s, Target, Kohl’s, Sears, Belk, and Sports Authority. Dick’s Sporting Goods opened at 5, along with Best Buy, Toys R Us, and JCPenney.
Why Sprawl Goes Broke, but Cities Rebound
Suburban sprawl often comes under criticism for a variety of aesthetic, environmental, and social reasons, but one criticism rules them all, Aaron Renn writes.
The Boarding Houses that Built America
During America’s century-long ascent from sleepy colonial backwater to great industrial giant, the urbanization of the country was funneled through a consistent apparatus: the boarding house. As Alexis de Tocqueville stepped off his boat onto Manhattan Island in 1831, he made his first stop a boarding house on Wall Street, where he found even New York’s governor would take up residence alongside men of considerably lesser influence.
Time Heals (Some) Buildings
In the site’s “Utopia Week” back in April, Gizmodo Urbanist Editor Alissa Walker tried to put her finger on the root cause of an instinctive objection that she (and others) can have to New Urbanism developments.
Why Shared Space Scares
“Monderman..was pleased to hear that residents, despite the measurable increase in safety, perceived the place to be more dangerous. This was music to Monderman’s ears.” Why should we want pedestrians to feel scared? Pedestrians are often the elderly, the disabled and children. Why should we affirmatively want them to fear for their lives when crossing the street? Drivers won’t feel scared, because they have weight on their side.
To Make Streets Safe, Make Them Dangerous
How do you keep cars from killing people? Ever since the automobile first started clogging city roads and competing with pedestrians for street space, planners and politicians have sought engineering solutions for road safety. And engineer we have.
Why Conservatives Must Engage Urbanism
Is there a place for conservative urbanism? That was the question prompted by Charles Marohn’s recent New Urbs article, “The Conservative Case Against the Suburbs.” Ben Adler, an environmental reporter over at Grist, said the conservative base will never listen to the lonely (though growing!) conservative urbanist voices. Keith Miller at Mere Orthodoxy argued conservative urbanists are abusing Ronald Reagan’s political legacy in favor of elitist technocratism.
Buried liabilities haunt the infrastructure debate
Last week, five cabinet secretaries testified before the Senate Commerce Committee in support of President Trump’s long-awaited and recently-announced infrastructure plan. Under the plan, $200 billion of federal spending would encourage $1.5 trillion of total infrastructure investment, driven by private capital and increased local government cost-sharing. This emphasis on efficient infrastructure investment is long overdue and should be warmly welcomed.
Reducing the costs of municipal water infrastructure
Cities across the country are facing crippling water infrastructure replacement costs, which are exacerbated by regulations requiring them to use outdated materials and technologies. By adopting performance-based standards, cities can save money by picking better pipe materials or installing green infrastructure. According to the EPA, over the next 20 years, the United States faces hundreds of billions of dollars in water infrastructure liabilities.
U.S. Manufacturing vs. China: Threat Still Exists
Why Chinese mercantilism still threatens U.S. manufacturing Perhaps it’s the natural human aversion to bad news — sometimes known as the “ostrich effect” — but few opinion leaders on U.S. economic policy appear willing to take a cold, hard look at the state of U.S. manufacturing. If they did, they wouldn’t be happy.
Cost Will be an Issue. Here’s Why.
Why do bridges cost more in America? From President Trump’s Camp David retreat with cabinet officials and congressional leaders at the beginning of this year, word emerged that the president and his advisers are divided on the best policy for infrastructure.
Amid the Seas of Empty Asphalt, After Christmas
Today is the day after Christmas, the day when families across the country burst out from their households of holiday cheer in order to once again brave the lines and lots of shopping malls, exchanging gifts and chasing year-end deals. It is, in other words, one of the busiest shopping days of the year, a “peak” shopping day for which big box stores are equipped with acres of asphalt.
With this tax bill, the GOP has finally killed family-friendly conservatism
Before I began my current job at a free-market think tank here in Washington, I spent more than a year working at the sales floor of a Target store in Cary, N.C. As I contemplated transferring colleges, I pieced together some additional income here and there, but for the most part I got by on just over $8 an hour. Some weeks, I got almost a full 40 hours, some only 12. But I managed to get by. As a single, childless young man, I didn’t have many expenses beyond my own minimal upkeep.
Commentary: Killing Mike Lee’s child tax credit plan reveals the GOP to be the party of welfare for the rich.
Before I began my current job at a free-market think tank in Washington, I spent more than a year working on the sales floor of a Target store in Cary, North Carolina. As I contemplated transferring colleges, I pieced together some additional income here and there, but for the most part I got by on just over $8 an hour. Some weeks, I got almost a full 40 hours, some only 12. But I managed: As a single, childless young man, I had few expenses beyond my own minimal upkeep.
Is Tesla a Threat?
The electric car company Tesla has been on a roll of late, turning its first profit while piling up accolades for what is one of the most lauded new cars to hit the market in decades. The Model S has nearly swept the major magazines‘ Car of the Year awards, and it received a nearly perfect score from Consumer Reports.
The Hidden Cost of California's Housing Crisis
For many California families, the accelerating housing crisis affects not just their budget, but their way of life. Every year over the past decade, the state estimates, 100,000 fewer units of housing have been built than were needed to keep up with demand. The result has been spiraling housing costs that price all but the wealthiest families out of a place to live. That, in turn, is reducing the number and size of families across the state.
The Hidden Cost of California's Housing Crisis
For many California families, the accelerating housing crisis affects not just their budget, but their way of life. Every year over the past decade, the state estimates, 100,000 fewer units of housing have been built than were needed to keep up with demand. The result has been spiraling housing costs that price all but the wealthiest families out of a place to live. That, in turn, is reducing the number and size of families across the state.
The Art of Place
ArtPrize is a queer sort of gallery show. There is no gallery, for one thing. Nor is there any particular curator. Instead, there is an urban core with a big pot of prize money in the middle of it. For two weeks every autumn in the West Michigan city of Grand Rapids, more than 1,000 registrants set up their entries in some 175 downtown venues and word is sent out that anyone who cares to do so may swing by to take a look.
Opinion | H Street Festival is a perfect example of why cities should ease open-container laws
Every September, thousands make their way to the District’s H Street neighborhood for the H Street Festival. The outdoor event features 10 blocks of live music, exhibits, karaoke stages, kids zones, mobile portrait studios and a fashion stage. But for an event that seemingly has everything under the sun, visitors are still forced to drink in the shade.
Rand Paul vs. the National Security Hawks
Sen. Rand Paul joined George Stephanopoulos’s “This Week” yesterday to talk unemployment insurance, his plan to sue the NSA, and the prospects of clemency for Edward Snowden. Rep. Peter King chased after him later that afternoon on Fox News to issue a steady stream of condemnations and insults as King steadfastly defended the National Security Agency.
The Conservatism of New Urbanism
Responding to Pascal-Emmanuel Gobry’s contention that the American left is intellectually exhausted, Noah Smith argues that one place liberals are stirring up new, progressive thinking is “the New Urbanists, which include prominent figures such as Richard Florida and a whole host of organizations working behind the scenes to transform American cities.” As Smith explains, In the decades since World War II, the U.S. has seen relentless suburban sprawl, white flight and concentrations of...
Can't afford housing? Move in with relatives
A mom, a dad, 2.4 children, and an energetic but well-behaved dog compose what we long have recognized as the classic American household: a nuclear family nestled in a suburban bungalow, living on a street with similar houses that contain similar households. Grandma and Grandpa live on their own matching street somewhere over the river.
Children are living with their parents longer. It’s a good thing.
A mom, a dad, 2.4 children and an energetic but well-behaved dog compose what we long have recognized as the classic American household: a nuclear family nestled in a suburban bungalow, living on a street with similar houses that contain similar households. Grandma and Grandpa live on their own matching street somewhere over the river. When the kids reach adulthood, they will establish their own independent nuclear habitations.
Perspective | Kids are living with their parents longer. It’s a good thing.
A mom, a dad, 2.4 children, and an energetic but well-behaved dog compose what we long have recognized as the classic American household: a nuclear family nestled in a suburban bungalow, living on a street with similar houses that contain similar households. Grandma and Grandpa live on their own matching street somewhere over the river. When the kids reach adulthood, they will establish their own independent nuclear habitations.
Aging water infrastructure could represent a looming fiscal crisis for taxpayers
Water is the single-biggest infrastructure liability American cities face, as the Environmental Protection Agency estimates a need for $600 billion to be spent over the next 20 years to meet essential drinking and wastewater needs. Here in the District of Columbia, some of our water pipes date all the way back to the Civil War. U.S. cities and towns are in greater fiscal peril than many of them even realize, as a broken model of development has turned their future balance sheets upside down.
Accessory Dwelling Units: A flexible free-market housing solution
Much of the American built environment was constructed in the post-World War II era, when government policy and planning fashion favored a highly dispersed development model centered on the primacy of the single-family detached home. Subsequent developments in zoning law tended to further privilege and protect the single-family detached home from any neighboring diversity of land use or building form.
Infrastructure Investment: Start Small, Cut Red Tape & Zoning Hurdles | National Review
Seven years into the recovery from the Great Recession, unemployment is down, gross domestic product is up, and the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed recently at an all-time high. Yet for millions of Americans, these positive national economic indicators belie the collapse of their local communities. In post-industrial cities and in long stretches of Appalachia, the dissolution of economic anchor institutions — whether mills, factories, farms, or mines — precipitated a slow social death.
Is Melbourne Really the World’s Most Livable City?
Who recalls John Gunther? You could acquire a very impressive general geographic education from Gunther’s mid-20th-century gazetteers of the First, Second, and Third Worlds. Inside Russia Today, Inside Europe, Inside Asia, Inside Africa, Inside U.S.A., Inside Latin America, Inside South America, Inside Australia and New Zealand (impressively accurate), and quite possibly, for all anyone knows or cares, Inside Tahiti or Inside Réunion.
Brazil’s Little Platoons
Nearly a quarter of Rio de Janeiro’s population—1.4 million people—lives in informal settlements known as favelas, where their legal rights only theoretically apply. In these communities, residents don’t even have the right to occupy the houses in which their families have lived for generations, and the whole city is following its country into economic and political crisis.
What West Baltimore Needs
I was walking with my family and some friends around our neighborhood last year when I heard someone utter that remark. As a white guy living in predominantly black West Baltimore, I was used to being mistaken for a cop or a drug buyer—but never for a tourist. Within minutes, though, as we rounded the next corner we encountered a group of people even whiter than us: a Scandinavian news crew filming a documentary. There were a lot of “tourists” around just then.
“We Know that We Are Going To Be Killed” | Fr. Douglas Bazi and Jonathan Coppage
Fr. Douglas Bazi is a Chaldean Catholic priest in his native Iraq, where he served as pastor of a parish in Baghdad during the American-led invasion. He suffered several acts of violence during the unrest that followed, including a kidnapping by Shiite militiamen who held and tortured him for nine days. Currently, he ministers to Iraqi Christians who have fled regions controlled by ISIS.
How to Build Housing From the Middle Out
Durango, Colorado is synonymous with the rugged American West for many, as the border town of 16,000 advertises its historic trails and cowboy classes, while Dodge continues to summon its name in countless rough-voiced commercials for the eponymous sport-utility vehicle.
Is 'Queen Bey' a Front Porch Republican?
When Beyoncé Knowles-Carter dropped her surprise Lemonade record on HBO last Sunday night, the Internet, well, it lost its mind. Perhaps moreso than any other artist recording today, Mrs. Knowles-Carter commands the power to reduce adult human beings into automata programmed for the typing of assorted punctuation.
Conservatives, Grab Your Pitchforks!
Could Republicans get around the Democratic populist flank? Heavens, let’s hope so. Thomas Edsall, the New York Times online columnist and veteran WaPo political reporter, fretted this week that a surging group of young conservative reformers might have learned the GOP’s lessons after 2012 well enough to steal the Democrats’ traditional economic thunder, and that Hillary could be too tied up in Wall Street to stop them.
When Seized Land Lies Fallow
When then Justice John Paul Stevens handed down his now infamous ruling in the eminent domain case Kelo v.
Church Bells and Gospel Choirs Under Gentrification
This story begins with the mundane, the bureaucratic even: a local noise ordinance complaint. Pleasant Grove Baptist Church in Oakland, Calif. recently received a notice from their city’s administration, noting the filing of a complaint claiming that the church’s evening gospel choir practice violated the local nuisance ordinances. The city’s letter indicated that fines of up to $3500, with $500 more accruing each day, could be imposed upon the church should it prove noncompliant.
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