Author Archives: Binglin Wang

Things behind Ithaca’s City Plan

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Last Wednesday, we were lucky to have Ithaca’s city planner Lisa Nicholas at Rose Cafe and talked about things that were going on behind Ithaca’s development. Although we live right here in Ithaca, it is so interesting to learn about some facts that we even don’t know about.

Lisa Nicholas began her talk with an overall introduction of Ithaca land plan and use.  She pointed out that comprehensive city plan and land use are determined by community goals. We are pleased to see that Ithaca has become one of the most popular places for retirement or spending vacations. While this brings opportunities for city growth, as more and more people are settled down in Ithaca, the challenge of balancing the demand and supply in the housing market could be obvious. These years, rental housing prices keep rising and Ithaca has a house vacancy rate of only 0.5%. Therefore, new houses should be built. The goal is to create opportunities while preserving and enhancing the characters of the existing. A mode of dense compact can be considered for the city plan.

There are some other interesting facts. Such as, there are 54% people living in Ithaca choosing to go to work by foot or by public transportations. This high percentage is rare among cities. I think it is because of the unique lifestyle that is shared among residents in this small city. At the end, house professor Garrick Blalock showed us two hotel projects are on the go, which will probably reduce the pressure of accommodation demand during the graduation season.

I am so exciting to see changes made in Ithaca and Ithaca will always be home to Cornellians.

First Rose Cafe This Semester, Enjoyed It!

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Last Wednesday, we had Professor Nicolas van de Walle talking about issues of economic development and government politics worldwide especially in African.

He began with some projects established last century and discussed their disadvantage. For example, he mentioned that at the beginning, financial aid between governments was largely used to build pure capital project. Later on, people realized that solely depending on capital would not solve the problem. Then, they turned to human capital, which related to investment in education as well as public health. After that, some new issues still arose and that eventually forced government to make economic policy adjustment. One of the focuses was the government corruption because corruption would be in the way of making rational policy. It was also interesting to see a trend that a dictator would perform worse and worse, as he control the realm for longer period.

Professor also listed some example of autocracy through which some dictators make a fair amount of money.  Indonesia had a restriction on import of chocolates. Some people use their privilege to gain huge profit from the scarcity of such goods. That was astonishing.

Overall, this was the first Rose Cafe this semester. This informative session gave us a large scope to look at. I enjoyed it. At last, wish everyone a good start of the semester~