A few things to know this week: February 21, 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:
Tiny blocks, big living (CNU Public Square)
As we've been discussing in our Community Cultivators network this week, smaller blocks have a host of advantages over the long blocks we've seen in post-war development. Here's a great (and super short) summary of how tiny blocks provide benefits to every community. – AJ
Understanding Walkable Density & Mapping Walkable Density (City Observatory)
You might live a quarter-mile from the grocery store or the train station. But if you were to walk there, what would the lived distance be? It might be exactly a quarter of a mile. Or it could be double that. It’s all in how the street grid is set up. “Since pedestrians can’t fly, they do have to walk along the street grid.” This study by DW Rowlands posits a new measure of walkable density that effectively captures how easily people can get around in real-world environments. She looks at some examples of places where the street grid approaches “ideal” and where it actually acts as a barrier to walkability. One takeaway is that the neighborhoods and cities that come much closer to achieving an "ideal" level of walkability tend to be older cities and core urban neighborhoods which have traditional street grid systems. – Jordan
A Land Value Tax Fosters Stronger Communities (Erraticus)
I've been a fan of the land value tax concept for a long time. As more cities come to grips with the resource gaps created by current property tax policies, I hope the land value tax will get stronger consideration as a potential path forward. – Kevin
Public meetings are broken. Here’s how to fix them. (Curbed)
I doubt any of our subscribers will disagree that public meetings are seriously broken. While we know that the format and timing are big contributors to the problem, this article from Curbed provides some other angles you may not have thought of yet, such as questioning local control as a concept. There are some interesting tips, and links to several excellent resources for additional reading in this piece. If you're interested in hearing some of our thoughts on public engagement and the meetings that have traditionally been used as a replacement for that, give this episode of our podcast a listen, and check out the show notes for additional resources. – AJ
Podcast: Tim Carney: “Alienated America” and the Rise of Populism (Strong Towns)
Don't get too attached or turned off by the link title. This is a great podcast discussion about the role church plays in communities, how different groups do (or do not) get social support from their neighbors, and the cultural (and political) ramifications of building fragile neighborhoods. – Kevin
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.
NYC’s coolest public art is making streets safer (Curbed NY)
New York City is ramping up its "Green Wave" plan—and new protected bike lanes are a big part of that plan. To jump-start that process, the city is also making public art a component. The transportation department is reviewing artist proposals that can be painted on the concrete barriers that will protect the bike lanes. This is a great example of creating functionality (protected lanes are the only true way to bike safety) and form in the same projects. I hope we can see this approach in Texas and Louisiana cities as well! – Tim
Urban Dinosaurs: It's Time These 8 Things Went Extinct In Our Cities (Strong Towns)
How many can you find in your city? Can you collect all eight?? ;) – Jordan
To get our cities moving again, we need a new kind of urban professional (Transportist)
At Verdunity, we are a mix of planners, engineers, data analysts, and facilitators who use fiscal sustainability as the common language to help city leaders close their resource gap and build healthy, equitable, and resilient communities incrementally with the resources they have on hand. I like to say we're a team of silo-busters. Every member of our team thrives on connecting people and perspectives together to challenge and move beyond status quo. When I read this article, I found myself nodding in agreement and even found many of the same phrases the author uses in notes I've made about our firm's purpose and business model. This excerpt sums it up nicely:
"We need a profession not of more urban planners, nor of more transport engineers, but urban operators – people engaged in today’s city, not tomorrow’s, but who can optimize for the system as a whole and not just their small piece of it. Instead, we should forge new urban operators as a strong alloy of planning, engineering, economics, and design. Urban operators take ideas in real time and solve today’s problems with resources on-hand, rather than solving imagined problems that bring distant dangers near. We have enough problems today. We also have solutions available to us today, and we don’t implement them. And yet people are employed to work on 40-year plans."
If you happen to work or live in a city who is looking for "urban operators" to partner with, get in touch with us. We'd love to expand our network of similar thinkers to share, explore, and implements lessons learned and new ideas! – Kevin
Upcoming keynotes and workshops!
Check out our Upcoming Events page to see if we’ll be anywhere near you this spring. We’re currently confirmed for the TML Elected Officials Conference in Frisco, the APA National Planning Conference in Houston, and the ELGL national conference in Portland, OR—and we’ll be adding more events shortly!
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:
Have thoughts on any of the links above? Think we missed something essential? We’re discussing these topics and more over on our brand-new online community, exclusively for local government employees.* Sign up for the Community Cultivators Network and join the discussion!
* 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!
