CenLamar | Est. 2006

Roy: Preparing Comprehensive Plan for Alexandria According to Mayor-elect Jacques Roy, suggestions from his seventy-plus member transition team will be used in writing an extensive and comprehensive plan for Alexandria’s future. Roy expects a preliminary plan to be completed within the next two weeks but states that a final draft won’t be ready for at least six months. “I think people will be surprised about the amount of material produced by the transition team, its interfacing with city officials (who have been very candid), and the preliminary compartmentalization of the issues,” Roy said. “The model we used has been very…

New York Times: Cities Compete for Coolness In Order To Attract Young Professionals Shaila Dewan wrote an interesting piece in today’s New York Times about the pressing desire for American cities to attract young people in order to ensure sustained growth. Why? From the article: These measures reflect a hard demographic reality: Baby boomers are retiring and the number of young adults is declining. By 2012, the work force will be losing more than two workers for every one it gains…. Cities have long competed over job growth, struggling to revive their downtowns and improve their image. But the latest…

Observations and Unsolicited Opinions on Alexandria’s Housing Problem Recently, the Town Talk reported that Central Louisiana’s real estate market is outperforming national trends by a significant margin. Although new high-end residential construction is definitely a growth sector in Central Louisiana, I disagree with the contention that our real estate market is healthy and stable, particularly Alexandria’s market. Indeed, the reason that our real estate market appears to be so strong is because affordable housing is simply too expensive to construct. The proliferation of high-end developments, while exciting, actually belies a major problem: the lack of affordable housing in our community.…