Urban Planning Blog

I have always loved the concept of moving entire houses. Considering how ‘rooted’ the houses are in India because of the way they are built, this concept was completely unimaginable to me when I first heard of it. Here is a time-lapse video of moving an 1883 carriage house in Portland:

I’m sure the old neighborhood will miss it but I’m sure the new one will love it.

Google, one of the most innovative companies on the block today stays on the top not by resting on its laurels (an awesome search engine) but by continuously adding to its multitude of web services. Google Maps apart from offering satellite views now gives you a street-level view of certain urban districts in the United States. Here is a streetview of San Francisco and here is one of New York’s Times Square.

Wired Magazine even put up a contest that allowed readers to send in submissions of Google Streetview ‘gotchas’. The contest received overwhelming responses and admittedly some extremely funny ones. But few visuals catch people sun-bathing or entering an adult bookstore; something that not everyone is comfortable parading in front of the world. A group pool of photographs on Flickr captures more such examples. New York Times picked up the story from Boing Boing that put the technology into perspective - would we be comfortable if Streetview if it was done by the NSA or CIA instead of Google? Now, that’s an interesting one. In an interview with NY Times, a woman in Oakland, CA expressed her opinion on violation of privacy when she saw a picture of her apartment window where her cat sitting inside is clearly visible. She says:

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At any given time, there are many quality lectures going around on university campuses across the nation. But grad school life is such that you scarcely get time to get done with your classes, assignments, and research and generally miss out on being exposed to great work right on your campus. I try to get around to attending the lectures at our own College of Architecture and the George Bush Presidential Library’s Distinguished Lecture series but have lately been unable to do so (after my classes, I keep telling myself.) Most of the time, the problem is time clashes or the hassle of getting to the venue.

But now, thanks to innovative technologies like podcasts and webcasts, such lectures can be made available to a larger audience. “Podcasts of presentations from Virginia Tech’s New Metropolis Lecture Series are now available, free of charge, from iTunes. Sponsored by the University’s Urban Affairs and Planning program in Alexandria, Va., the lectures focus on cutting-edge topics and ideas about metropolitan development in the United States and abroad. Featured speakers have a broad regional, national and international reputation in scholarship, research, and policy” [via email from Shannon.]

The schedule for lectures at Virginia Tech is available here and the podcasts are available a day after the lecture. Although most lectures were held last year, the podcasts I believe are available now. Upcoming lectures include:

March 28, 2007
The New Revolution: Form-based Codes
Peter Katz, author of The New Urbanism; Toward an Architecture of Community

April 25, 2007
The Status and Future of Public Transportation in the U.S.
William Millar, President of the American Public Transportation Association.

I love Peter Katz’s work and always wanted to sit in on his lecture. Well, now I can, from the comfort of my home on a lazy weekend. I hope other schools jump on this bandwagon and offer a podcast version of their lecture series.

[tags]podcast, Urban Planning, lecture, series, university, planning, Virginia Tech[/tags]

Note: This is a paid review through the Review Me program.

The housing market has cooled in the last few months with the appreciation rate dropping from almost 12% to 0.4% signaling signs of an impending recession even from the former Fed Res. Bank Chairman Alan Greenspan. However, the rental market is buoyant as ever and has been devoid of the uncertainties of the home buyers market. The rental market is also heavily location dependent and generally barring large scale changes in urban geography tends to be stable.

Information dissemination through Internet-powered technology has proven to be beneficial for the consumer who otherwise had to drive around the town to get a good deal. Craigslist was one of the first sites that shattered the monopoly of the newspaper classifieds. Tenant Market is one such site that connects renters with landlords. The property information is uploaded by landlords based on criteria for an ideal tenant which is matched with profiles uploaded by renters. The following graphic (click to enlarge) does a fine job of explaining how Tenant Markets work:

The search function is free but Tenant Market charges a subscription fee starting at $29.95 if the landlord wishes to contact the renter. The landlords are proactive by looking for renters that match their criteria and contacting them. The 10-day trial costs $29.95, the standard subscription valid for 20 days sets you back by $39.95 and the Good-till-filled subscription is valid until vacancy is filled and costs the landlords $74.95. The prices seem fair for considering the high rents and unpredictable nature of renters.

Tenant Market claims to reaching over 11 million renters per year. I find this number a little high but Tenant Market claims to partner with “some of the Internet’s biggest apartment hunting, rental listing, and online services that reach over 10 million unique visitors per year” apart from advertising. The renters aren’t required to respond to every landlord that contacts them and received a personalized offer. Both the renter and the landlord are free to meet, visit the property, and discuss finer details before finalizing the contract.

Tenant Market is not your typical classified site since it requires you to first register and create a profile for landlords before the site proceeds to hook you up. I think this is a different and unique approach in the rental market by moving the burden of searching from the renter to the landlord. It may seem a big discomforting to sit back and wait for the landlord to contact you when you might be in a tearing hurry. The site is definitely oriented toward the landlords and it might need a few testimonials before renters are comfortable in sharing their profiles and rest assured they get quick and reliable offers.

Technorati Tags: landlords, renters, rental market, for rent, classifieds, multiple listing services, MLS

Note: This is the second in the series of paid reviews through ReviewMe.

The real estate market, often an indicator of the national economy, has been doing the yo-yo dance over the last few years and although the market looked optimistic, trends have been on the downward slide since past few months. However, this phase of home-buying has been characterized by ample information available over the Internet. The surplus amount of information is always a plus when you are about to make the biggest investment of your life. Sites like Zillow have even bared the erstwhile fiercely guarded aspects of real estate namely the price. In addition, the mobility of population especially the high-skilled ones has been enhanced by the ability to research information before making the move. Often standard of life has been an influential factor in addition to the cost of living. People may wish to live in New York for its parks, museums, and night life even though it frightfully expensive (I know, I would). Also, the tools to review as much information as possible of the new place you are planning to move to without getting off your couch are more easily available now.

Automated Homefinder is one such web service that focuses on the real estate market in Colorado. This website is a free service offered by Benchmark Realty located in Boulder County and serves a host of locations around the state. This service is basically an aggregation from several Colorado Multiple Listing Servings (MLS) including listings from public information records like foreclosures, “for sale by owner” and “real estate owned” notices. Colorado is a growing market and although demand is high, the home prices are sagging. The weather can be great especially when there is no winterstorm blowing through the region.

Automated Homefinder allows you to browse through almost 40,000 listings in Boulder, Ft. Collins, Denver, and other major cities in the state. You can specify your search criteria by home size, price range, location, and other relevant criteria options available on the site. Remember, you might have to select a city first before narrowing down your search. And also, remember not to set your price range too low. I tried looking for a home between $150,000 and $300,000 and came with nothing. Living in a small and inexpensive town can spoil you.

Be sure to check out the price ranges in each city before running a search. These price ranges are provided for 24 cities and are categorized by number of listings, minimum and maximum price, and the average price. Don’t let the million-plus maximum prices scare you. Also, be sure the average price also doesn’t fool you because it can be skewed by couple of high-end properties. More the listings, the better representative the average price will be. In addition you could also sort the cities according to all of the above factors by clicking on the up or down arrows next to the field headers. The listings however are not displayed on the screen but instead are emailed to you. I am not sure why that is so but perhaps, it is to gather information on who is requesting listings. A nifty feature is the mortgage calculator which I assume is for a quick look at your payments. So is the Appraisal Tools section which aid your home buying decisions

A couple of suggestions; in addition to the oh-so-cliched testimonials, it would be useful to let users leave comments directly on the site. This would greatly enhance the credibility of the site. Also, the site would be better served by a discussion forum where people could post questions about the city they are locating to and could be replied by residents or a support staff. Of course, the chances of misuse cannot be denied but I feel, the benefits largely outweigh the downsides. Although, there is information available on Colorado and Boulder, this section can be significantly expanded or at least a compendium of related links [some provided] be provided to help the user gather more information.

Overall, an excellent service for those planning on moving to Colorado in the near future.

Technorati Tags: Colorado, MLS, real estate, housing, home buyers, home listings

Turning on the solar power in your home need not be expensive anymore. A renewable energy development company, Citizenre is offering customers to “rent” solar panels for a fixed period of time while paying a per-kilowatt fee replacing the local utility bill.

This is a notable effort since the prohibitive aspect of solar power in homes is the upfront installation and maintenance charges that many people don’t want to invest in. This offer lets them try out the utility of solar power without heavy investment. The only cost is a security deposit of $500 that is paid back with interest after the end of the term.

Calculate your savings using their Solar Savings Calculator.

Technorati Tags: solar, power, energy, sustainability, Citizenre, savings

In a quiet town in Northern California, there sits atop a hill a house stocked full of the latest gear for the tech-savvy home buyer. Remote-controlled blinds, giant projection-televisions operated by wireless remotes, and automated showers are just some of the features assembled in this power-home.

Video here.

[tags]technology, high-tech, homes[/tags]