Urban Living in California

Photo from CurbedLA.

This brand new building designed by Aleks Istanbullu Architects features ten units for purchase between $799,000 to $1.449 million.

For more photos and information, visit the building’s website or CurbedLA.

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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Photo and article from the Telegraph. Article by Tom Leonard

The government looking at expanding a pioneering scheme in Flint, one of the poorest US cities, which involves razing entire districts and returning the land to nature.

Local politicians believe the city must contract by as much as 40 per cent, concentrating the dwindling population and local services into a more viable area.

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Photo and article from the Los Angeles Daily News.

Two Los Angeles city councilmembers on Wednesday proposed an ordinance that calls on outdoor advertising companies to voluntarily remove their signs – a welcome plea for critics who say the city is saturated with 8,000 billboards that contribute to urban blight.

The proposal doesn’t just rely on the good hearts of outdoor advertisers, who have shown little regard for city billboard ordinances in the past.

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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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Image from Damian Dovarganes/AP

When the Century Plaza Hotel emerged on the LA landscape in the 1960’s, it was modern and sleek. Now that it is dwarfed by taller, thinner buildings, new owner Michael Rosenfeld wants to demolish the building and replace it with two sleek new towers.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation and actress Diane Keaton stand in opposition to this new project. They want to protect this historic hotel because of its cultural value and distinctive shape. Other concerns include the un-green notion of tearing down a perfectly good building and building another for mainly aesthetic reasons.

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From Curbed LA by Dakota.

Hands down the most enviable feature of the 5,716-square foot penthouse at KMD Architects-designed Carlyle on Wilshire, that under-construction tower along the Wilshire Corridor, is the view from the bath tub. Who wouldn’t be content just to sleep in that tub every night? Not that there is a single bad view from this two-story, 23rd floor penthouse, on the market for $12.575 million, and the most expensive of the six penthouses available. This penthouse has a crescent shape and wraps around the side of the building, and that first shot is the view from the balcony off one of the sitting rooms. More captions below the photos.

One of four luxury towers currently selling units, Elad Properties’ 78-unit tower will be done in about a month and half. In terms of notable amenities for the whole building, if you are one of those people who happens to like Dale Chihuly, there’s a $1 million sculpture that’ll dangle in the lobby. There are so-called maids quarters on the lower floors available for purchase (these are small units, but still probably far larger than your apartment). There’s a communal wine cellar, and a pool and outdoor seating area behind the building. As for potential buyers, we hear it’s a mixed crowd that’s expected to come: Overseas, locals, and the older, downsizing set. Apparently there’s also a trend among those who live along Wilshire Boulevard to always move into newest building, so perhaps the Wilshire Boulevard hoppers will come in here. And in case you were wondering about sales, the marketing team isn’t releasing sales figures. And monthly HOAs:* Around $2,500 for a two-bedroom, around $3,500 for a month for a three-or four and half-bedroom. And over $4,000 for penthouses.

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Article and photo from Infrastructurist by Jebediah Reed.

In road-building circles, the “concrete vs. asphalt” debate is every bit as intense as that drunken discussion (eventually devolving into a weepy shouting match) every year at Thanksgiving dinner between your right-wing uncle and your pinko vegan cousin.

On the rhetorical battleground, one of the strongest anti-concrete arguments has always been: “So pricey!” But perhaps that is changing. In Minneapolis, when bids came in on a project that includes new bus lanes and wider sidewalks (on Marquette and Second Aves near the convention center, for those familiar with the local terrain) the concrete and asphalt options cost more or less the same, according to a local business paper.

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