Urban Living in California

You see a tall and beautiful building under construction in a perfect location. The sign outside tells you that you can tour a model and buy on the first five floors today! As you walk through the unfinished lobby, you see potential through the construction, and you fall in love with the apartment’s space and decor. Although you may be tempted to sign on the dotted line right then and there, this unfinished building could turn from dream to nightmare.

Buying in unfinished buildings is risky because many things could go wrong. Although it may seem like construction is moving along nicely now, lenders can always change their minds and back out of the project, stopping construction and leaving an unfinished project halted and awaiting funding. Think of how many buildings you have seen or heard about sitting for ten years before a buyer comes along and decides to renovate. Or worse, tear the whole thing down to build something new.

If the project loses funding and you have already committed to living there, you may be stuck in a building that feels like a ghost town. The beautiful apartment that you fell in love with is still just as beautiful on the inside, but you have no neighbors and the building has an eerie quiet. The sense of community that you hoped to buy into is nonexistent, and you may not have enough money to try to find another place to live.

There are plenty of beautiful and finished buildings opening their doors around the country all the time, so if you feel tempted by that fancy new unfinished project, resist the urge to buy. In a year, if you still haven’t found the right place to live, maybe that dream building will be finished and you can buy into a safe bet.

Photo and article from New Geography. Article by Michael Scott.

There’s been a torrent of spirited banter lately about the reemergence of downtown central-cities. Much of this raucous debate is between advocates of urban revitalization, who offer an assortment of anti-sprawl messages as justification for this movement, and those who see suburban growth options as essential to quality of life in America. Adding to the fray are environmentalists who see housing density and alternative forms of transportation as the panacea for confronting our carbon-choked world. Downtown central-cities, they say, will incentivize citizens to relinquish their cars in favor of bikes and walking paths.

These discussions largely ignore a greater significance to the reemergence of central-cities; namely, the recognition of downtowns as the epicenter of civic and cultural activity. This represents a shift away from the traditional concept – barely a century old and now antiquated – of downtown as predominately an economic and job center hub.

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With more limited funding and lower audience turnout, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art has decided to cancel the long-running weekend film program. The museum acknowledges the unfortunate circumstances that led to this decision, but remains committed to film as an art form.

Read more from the LA Times.

From Bloomberg.com by Courtney Schlisserman and Bob Willis

July 27 (Bloomberg) — Purchases of new homes in the U.S. climbed 11 percent in June, the biggest gain in eight years, underscoring evidence that the deepest housing slump since the Great Depression is starting to stabilize.

Sales increased to a 384,000 annual pace, higher than every forecast in a Bloomberg News survey and the most since November, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. The number of houses on the market dropped to the lowest level in more than a decade.

Deutsche Bank Securities Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. economists said today’s figures signal an end to the slide in home construction and sales. While that means the drag on economic growth will turn to a stimulus in the second half of the year, property values are likely to continue falling and rising unemployment will temper the recovery, analysts said.

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From Planetizen by Amber Hawkes and Georgia Sheridan

Streets aren’t just for driving, and cities are starting to realize it. Amber Hawkes and Georgia Sheridan explain why street design matters and where we are today in terms of designing the “street space.”

Reclaiming the Street

In October of 2007, the South Tyneside Council, a small cluster of communities in northeast England, published a Street Design Manual, setting a new agenda for the City to reclaim the street space. The manual notes that city government has been responsible for the creation of:

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