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Aaron Donovan

Before he began blogging about land use and transportation, Aaron Donovan wrote The New York Times Neediest Cases Fund's annual fundraising appeal for three years and earned a master's degree in urban planning from Columbia. Since then, he has worked for nonprofit organizations devoted to New York City economic development. He lives and works in the Financial District, and sees New York's pre-automobile built form as an asset that makes New York unique in the United States, and as a strategic advantage that should be capitalized upon.

Recent Posts

Holiday Book Recommendations Open Thread

By Aaron Donovan | Dec 18, 2006 | 17 Comments
Some of us at Streetsblog headquarters were talking about putting together a sidebar listing of recommended books to reinforce the commentary you find on the blog. I put together a few brief recommendations of five of my favorites, but we’re also interested in learning what you’ve all been reading and what you’d suggest to others, so […]

Parochial Thinking Amid Ominous Signs

By Aaron Donovan | Dec 12, 2006 | 1 Comment
The Committee to Keep NYC "Congestion Tax Free." Front row, left to right: John Corlett, Automobile Club of New York; Ray Irrera, Queens Chamber of Commerce; Council Member David Weprin; Lobbyist Walter McCaffrey; Joe Conley of Queens Community Board 2. Ominous warnings relating to energy consumption have come recently from people on both ends of the political spectrum. The free-marketeers at […]

Auto Insurance Break for Rail Commuters

By Aaron Donovan | Nov 30, 2006 | 9 Comments
File this under the Duh category: New Jersey Skylands Insurance Companies has unveiled a promotion that highlights what it says is a first-of-a-kind discount for New Jersey drivers who regularly commute to work via mass transit — a rate discount of up to 10 percent. It is great to see that insurance companies are doing […]

Electrification of the Region’s Rail

By Aaron Donovan | Nov 20, 2006 | 15 Comments
One of those subtle aspects of life that serves to normalize auto transport as the only thing going is the way most maps are designed to barely include railroad tracks and stations, presumably so as to avoid interfering with roads and Interstates and their giant identification shields. But when we plug some fun data into Google mashup mapping, it is clear that […]

Climate Change: A View From the Deep Sea

By Aaron Donovan | Oct 27, 2006 | No Comments
A discussion with Columbia paleoceanographer Peter B. deMenocal

The Cost of Sprawl on Low-Income Families

By Aaron Donovan | Oct 17, 2006 | 8 Comments
Via the Manhattan Institute’s new blog, Streetsblog learns of a pdf-formatted report entitled A Heavy Load: The Combined Housing and Transportation Burdens of Working Famillies, which looks at the housing and transportation expenses paid by lower income families in a number of cities. The report, published by the Center for Housing Policy, a K Street […]

Pricing for Sustainability

By Aaron Donovan | Oct 2, 2006 | 6 Comments
In his weekly radio address yesterday, Mayor Bloomberg discussed some steps his administration is taking toward a sustainable future, including the creation of an Office of Long-Term Planning and Sustainability, and a Sustainability Advisory Board, which held its first meeting last week. Long-term sustainability is of course right up Streetsblog’s alley. Correspondent Charles Komanoff donned his […]

Urban Density and a Pocketbook Plea for Congestion Pricing

By Aaron Donovan | Sep 26, 2006 | 17 Comments
Of the ten largest cities in the United States, New York has far and away the greatest population density: 26,402.9 people per square mile, more than double the second densest big city, Chicago. The chart at right shows how the largest metropolitan areas stack up in terms of core population, overall population and core population density.  […]

The True Cost of Gasoline, and What to Do About Energy

By Aaron Donovan | Aug 23, 2006 | 10 Comments
The news media has been writing a lot about energy and oil addiction lately.  One particularly noteworthy package of reporting highlights the hidden problems of oil addiction. Another searches for ways it could be alleviated but misses the most critical one. The first is The Chicago Tribune’s enormously important four-part series by Pulitzer-winning reporter Paul Salopek […]

Eyes on the Street: Demand Management

By Aaron Donovan | Aug 21, 2006 | 5 Comments
You get more of what you subsidize and less of what you tax. –Ancient Economic Adage

Guess-the-Suburb Winner Is: Matt

By Aaron Donovan | Aug 11, 2006 | 5 Comments
Remember Wednesday’s guess-the-anonymous-suburb contest? I’m very impressed: You all knew the right region — the northeast United States. (Was it the Ames sign? The trees? The first comment suggesting that this was a place "north of the city"?) Runner-up prizes consisting of official "Street Cred" go to Bill and Karla (your first attempt was closer!) for guessing […]

Pseudo-Environmental Hummers

By Aaron Donovan | Jul 24, 2006 | 9 Comments
A lone Hummer driver with a conscience? At first glance, it seems so. But this is actually becoming something of a trend: Everyone who is pitching an alternative fuel these days is using a Hummer to make his or her point. And the reason is obvious. Everyone knows that Hummers are the most gas guzzing private vehicles on […]
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