Flight of the Condo
I'm a little late picking this up, but both the New York Times and the Seattle Times have now run stories on what's supposedly a hot new trend in Seattle: adding luxury condo units to downtown hotels. Condo-owners get the benefits of hotel amenities, such as room service, room cleaners, valet parking, and a concierge. 
Plus, at least one of the proposed hotel/condo plans would be bundled with a mix of stores and services, such as a grocery and a bank. But residents pay a pretty penny for all the amenities, as the properties are largely aimed at the very high end of the real estate market.
I don't quite know what to make of the hoopla, since I don't imagine that this is really a major housing trend. There are just four hotel/condo projects underway in downtown Seattle, and one in Bellevue, which makes this kind of development more of a niche than a major market segment. But the condo units are apparently selling like hotcakes, which does signal something positive: that the market for an active and vibrant downtown lifestyle seems to be taking off.
And in terms of curbing suburban sprawl, high-end downtown development is a good thing. To some extent, the folks to whom this sort of development is marketed are the same folks who'd have the money for big McMansions. Providing attractive opportunities for them downtown helps pull development inward, thereby reducing development pressure on farmland and open space on the urban fringe.
Plus, people who live downtown, and within walking distance of services and jobs, tend to drive a lot less -- which is good for the climate, the economy, public safety, etc. etc.
The only problem, though, is the optics. One of the big raps against downtown development is that it's all about gentrification--and that it raises the cost of downtown housing for the poor and middle class. To the extent that there's a lot of press attention focused on a few developments that cater to the ultra-rich, it can help foster the impression that ordinary people are being priced out of the market.
Clean-Car Dominoes II
As announced last week, the Canadian government and the nation's automobile industry signed a pact yesterday to reduce greenhouse gas emissions of their vehicles sold in Canada by 5.3 million metric tons--about 25 percent--by the end of 2010. The new standards will force an unprecedented increase in gas mileage for more than one-third of the vehicles sold in North America. New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Vermont and Maine have adopted California's strict emissions targets.
With this mass of auto buyers now joined by millions of Canadians, the auto industry is under increasing pressure to adopt the new levels for all its fleets, rather than offering different models for the two different markets.
If Washington and Oregon go down the clean-car road, the momentum will increase even more. And that's probably enough to flip the entire North American market over to cleaner technology. Feebates--powerful point-of-purchase incentives--can also play a key role.
