A few things to know this week: February 14, 2020
Happy Friday!
Every week, we round up some of the things we read, listened to, or watched that really caught our attention. Here are just a few things we think you should know this week:
This week's things to know:
The Pseudoscience of Parking Requirements (APA)
The latest issue of the American Planning Association's Zoning Practice takes on the "pseudoscience of parking requirements." It tackles the cost, the emotion, the inequity, and a variety of other factors. Check out the last page, with a list of great resources to further explore the topic. – AJ
The Great Affordability Crisis Breaking America (The Atlantic)
“The Economy” has had a great decade. American families? Not so much. The affordability crisis the author describes “involved not just what families earned but the other half of the ledger, too—how they spent their earnings. In one of the best decades the American economy has ever recorded, families were bled dry by landlords, hospital administrators, university bursars, and child-care centers. For millions, a roaring economy felt precarious or downright terrible.” – Jordan
Liz Swaine: Bootstrapping Downtown Shreveport (Strong Towns)
In the latest Strong Towns podcast, Liz Swaine from the Downtown Development Authority in Shreveport outlines her experience in spurring on incremental development downtown. If you're looking for a podcast with lots of good nuggets, this is for you! Liz chats about how to interact with public officials, how to always push for better on projects, and much more! – Tim
Why Leslie Knope Should Care About Fiscal Sustainability (ELGL)
Even in Pawnee, fiscal sustainability is a topic worthy of significant discussion. This piece, courtesy of ELGL, shares some basic guidelines from the Government Finance Officers Association (GFOA) that are a great place to start. My favorite tip? The suggestion that cities ask themselves, collectively and individually, if they could explain the financial condition of their government to a concerned resident. How would your city answer that question? – AJ
Gas Taxes May Not Be Just For Roads Anymore In Georgia (Streetsblog)
Do you enjoy these weekly roundups? (Why wouldn’t you?) You can get them sent straight to your email inbox every Friday, if you’re into that.
Fuel taxes in the Georgia can now be allocated to "all" transportation needs throughout the state. This is a tax that has primarily been attributed to the wear and tear that cars cause on roadways, but now can be allocated to alternative avenues such as active transportation implementations or research studies on non-motorized transportation byways. This is a positive sign that will lead other states to look at where their gas taxes are being used, and how to better allocate them. Better allocation of funds to multiple streams of transportation innovation and maintenance could very well lead to the actualization of some goals different cities have set out for themselves in terms of traffic fatalities, accidents, or transportation user ratios. – Ryan
Missing the Bus (99% Invisible)
If you heard our interview with Jerome Horne of the Indianapolis public transit agency, you may remember that he recommended the book Better Buses, Better Cities. As it happens, the excellent 99% Invisible podcast put out an episode with the author of that book earlier this month. It makes a great follow-up to our chat with Jerome. – Jordan
Want to learn more about how fiscal analysis can help you make your city stronger financially?
We created a new sister website showcasing how we use math, maps, and money to help cities communicate your resource gap and explore ways to increase tax revenue and improve service efficiency without necessarily raising taxes.
Hey, friends in local government:
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* The network is currently only for those wonderful folks out there who work in local government. If you’re not currently working for a city, town, or county, we still love you (and are sure many of you would add value to the community), but we want to keep our commitment to making this a community focused specifically on our friends working in local government. Thanks for understanding!
