2013

"The Customers 2020 findings provide a clearer picture of what customer experience will look like in the not-too-distant future. In this report, Walker takes the message one step further, illuminating the evolutions that companies can and should focus on now to exceed customer expectations in 2020 – and to win."

This article outlines a case study of Los Angeles parking requirements, studying whether parking requirements impact the amount and type of housing that is developed, particularly in housing developed in old vacant and commercial buildings.

Various cities across England and Germany have completely abolished parking minimums.

In Seattle, a suburban shopping center’s parking lot is being transformed into a new walkable neighborhood.

This book is designed to communicate how communities of all kinds are making these changes all the time. It is our hope that this will make it easier for new projects to get built and that the examples will make it possible for a “new normal” to take hold, where all streets are revisited and assessed to see whether they can be doing more. This is similar to a post-occupancy analysis–do our streets perform the way we want given all of the needs and uses we have of them? If not, then this book provides many examples on how to move forward and ‘remodel’ our streets.

In 2012 UN-Habitat presented to the world the notion of city prosperity, which implies success, wealth, thriving conditions, and wellbeing, as well as opportunity for all. Cities that foster infrastructure development, environmental sustainability, high productivity, quality of life, and equity and social inclusions are considered prosperous cities, Building on the notion of prosperity, UN-Habitat emphasizes that for a city to be prosperous, it must have a generous and well-designed street pattern. In this report, UN-Habitat advocates for a holistic approach to streets as public spaces that embraces the concept of livability and completeness. A good street pattern boosts infrastructure development, enhances environmental sustainability, supports higher productivity, enriches quality of life, and promotes equity and social inclusion.

As e-commerce sales march ahead of in-store sales, the major issue discussed at the Retail Industry Leaders Association’s (RILA) Retail Supply Chain Conference: Logistics 2013 was best practices for developing and executing an omni-channel distribution strategy. And real estate—particularly distribution centers (DCs)—is a significant part of the process. This article reviews the main questions asked during the conference.

Public transit accounts for only 1% of U.S. passenger miles traveled but nevertheless attracts strong public support. Using a simple choice model, we predict that transit riders are likely to be individuals who commute along routes with the most severe roadway delays. These individuals’ choices thus have very high marginal impacts on congestion. We test this prediction with data from a sudden strike in 2003 by Los Angeles transit workers. Estimating a regression discontinuity design, we find that average highway delay increases 47% when transit service ceases. This effect is consistent with our model’s predictions and many times larger than earlier estimates, which have generally concluded that public transit provides minimal congestion relief. We find that the net benefits of transit systems appear to be much larger than previously believed.