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In SF politics, the action’s in District 6, a bellwether for rest of city

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Take a walk east from the gold-plated cupola of San Francisco City Hall and the landscape transforms into the Tenderloin, a patchwork of residential hotels, small delis and social service clinics that cater to the poor. It winds into the city’s main tourist corridor , and, farther along, a glossy cluster of condominium towers where upper- story penthouses cost millions . These symbols of extreme poverty and prosperity are wedged together in District Six, which serves both as a portal for visitors and a cauldron where San Francisco ’s most pressing political issues simmer . For 20 years, District Six voters have reliably concluded that the solutions to those issues come from the progressive viewpoint. And while it’s more than a year until the next election for supervisor, the contest is already shaping up as a test of whether that is still true. From the Tenderloin to the Mission Bay waterfront , District Six has seen a rush of development over the past two decades, and residents are ...

What Cities Can Learn From the Victorian Era

The Late Victorian period in the United States—roughly the last third of the 19th century—produced some of the most beautiful neighborhoods in the history of Western civilization . It also produced some of the most hopeless slums. In response to the crisis of industrial cities, the modern discipline of city planning emerged . The tools of this new profession helped clean up many unhealthy aspects of urban industry , but also stifled some of the best innovations of Late Victorian urbanism . By the 1920s, planners in the industrial world had established the legal authority to promulgate land-use regulations, and over the next generation, they succeeded at slowing the construction of slum housing and segregating noxious industries from incompatible activities, such as housing and office space. Through some of the same devices, however, planners curtailed some positive features of 19th- century urbanism , including the rich variety of free- form industrial development and the adaptiv...

Detroit Shoreway apartments, Intesa project and Legacy Village expansion secure Port of Cleveland financing OKs (photos)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- A Lyndhurst hotel and a pair of projects that will bring nearly 500 apartments to Cleveland won financing support Tuesday from the Cleveland- Cuyahoga County Port Authority . The port's board signed off on nearly $200 million in real estate- related bond transactions , setting the stage for construction to start within months on a trio of projects. The agency acts as a conduit for development financing, issuing bonds and helping to structure deals that involve longer terms , lower interest rates or cheaper construction materials than a borrower might find in the private market. Tuesday's headline deals were: A  Hyatt Place hotel and a 355- space parking garage at the Legacy Village shopping center in Lyndhurst. Developer Mitchell Schneider hopes to start construction in May and to complete the $33 million project by June 2016, in hopes of grabbing hotel- room demand generated by the Republican National Convention in July. The 135-room hotel and gara...

The Next Hot 'Hoods in Pittsburgh - Pittsburgh Magazine - March 2016

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We offer our predictions on communities that will rank among the city's most desirable in 2026. Plus a look at developers who are working to make those visions a reality. February 18, 2016 (page 7 of 7) 8 developers with insight who are rethinking our urban neighborhoods   BY DEBRA SMIT G reat neighborhoods — with ample green space , commerce and good housing stock — empower their residents to grow and prosper. Developers are key when it comes to weaving together the physical threads of a community, particularly in urban neighborhoods frayed by years of blight and decay. These are among the developers who are working to revitalize some of the city’s most challenged neighborhoods, striving to be restorers of streets in which to dwell. All have one eye, certainly, on the bottom line. Still, they are well aware of expectations that they give measured consideration to quality of life in the neighborhoods in which they build.   Wi...