A few things to know this week: April 17, 2020
Happy Friday, friends! Every week we collect some of the best things that members of our Verdunity team read, watched, or listened to over the course of the week.
New on the Go Cultivate! podcast:
Small development, trust, & strong local economies – with R. John Anderson
R. John Anderson, co-founder of Incremental Development Alliance, joins the show to talk about the small developer movement, the CARES Act and its impact on small businesses right now, and what cities can do to cultivate a stronger small business ecosystem.
Check out our other recent coronavirus-related episodes:
This week’s things to know:
Let’s Not Overthink This: Opening Streets is Easy, Says Urban Planner Mike Lydon (Streetsblog)
The coronavirus outbreak has some cities taking quick, incremental actions to make more public space safe for people to get out and exercise. This has taken a few different forms, including full or partially opened streets, resident-led block openings temporary bikeways, and more. In this piece, Mike Lydon (who literally wrote the book on tactical urbanism) gives some practical tips for opening streets ASAP. Good news: it’s really not too hard. And if cities (and residents) discover they actually like quieter, safer streets, there’s absolutely no reason they can’t keep these experiments going long after the pandemic. One other benefit to this approach is that it’s incredibly cost-effective. You don’t necessarily need a multi-million-dollar project to expand your city’s active transportation infrastructure. – Jordan
New Zealand First Country To Fund Pop-Up Bike Lanes, Widened Sidewalks During Lockdown (Forbes)
Speaking of giving tactical street-transformation projects the green light, check out New Zealand right now. It has become the first country to make tactical urbanism into official government policy during the coronavirus pandemic. The country’s transport minister (Julie Anne Genter) is inviting New Zealand cities to apply for 90% funding for any number of small, immediate measures that make streets safer for people on foot and bikes—the kind that can be implemented within hours, rather than months. This is good policy regardless of the timing, but is taking on new urgency as the novel coronavirus keeps people indoors, with few options for exercising and being outdoors safely.
Here are two excellent quotes from Genter that sum up the issues at play:
“Walking and cycling are always great ways to move more people around towns and cities because it is cheap, it takes less space on the roads and needs less parking. Plus it provides moderate exercise, it’s quiet and doesn’t pollute the air or climate.”
“To me, [tactical urbanism is] about moving away from an approach in transport engineering that has often been very theoretical, and relied on models or inappropriate standards, to a more agile and empirical approach. We can trial things in a low-cost way and make that part of the consultation, so people and businesses can experience what it is like, and make that experience and real-life data gathering part of the consultation to better inform decision making.” – Jordan
When This Crisis Ends, People Will Still Need A Place To Live (Forbes)
I had Incremental Development Alliance co-founder John Anderson on our podcast this week to talk about the role small developers and local businesses can and must play in helping communities recover from this pandemic. Many small developers specialize in construction of live-work buildings and residential housing options from tiny homes to cottages to duplexes and fourplexes. There was already a shortage of affordable homes around the country before the virus, but as this article points out, this need is going to become even more pronounced in the months ahead. – Kevin
How to keep homes affordable—permanently (Texas Observer)
Community Land Trusts are gaining traction as a way to address the affordable housing shortage. This article explains what they are and shares a few examples. The author also references the land value tax, which I believe is ultimately needed to move toward if we want to align development patterns, tax revenue, and costs required to cover city services and infrastructure. – Kevin
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Trump administration wants delay in 2020 census due to coronavirus (ABC 7)
If you're wondering how COVID-19 will affect the 2020 Census, here's a quick read outlining how that's developing. While it is unfortunate that the Census Bureau is seemingly being left out of conversations with the current administration, it has been confirmed by all parties that a 120 day delay is being sought (field operations were originally intended to resume this week). – AJ
Innovation in the Heartland: How Sioux Falls is turning public problem-solving on its head (Bloomberg Cities)
Here's a refreshing read for the time we find ourselves in. Sioux Falls is approaching their transportation issues by doing something most would find counter-intuitive—asking people who aren't transportation experts. They've formed a core team who specifically were people who did not have specific knowledge of the public transit issue there locally. They were, however, people who were strategic, innovative, and high-energy. They also worked to interview people who don't use public transit.
Using a human-centered design approach—starting with no assumptions about the problem or pre-conceived solutions—they're coming up with a package of numerous, small changes that they predict will have a big impact. Best of all, they're doing this inside their own organization with the people they already have on staff, save one outside consultant helping them to guide the discussion and offering coaching where needed. It's proof that small cities can still be very dynamic and creative, at a low cost. It's exactly the kind of projects we recommend to our clients. – AJ
Rapid Response: Tools for Cities (NACTO)
NACTO has been at the front lines of making our cities more people friendly in regards to transportation. And now it has released a new guide on the ways that cities and transit agencies are responding to the novel cornavirus outbreak. These responses can be rapidly deployed in a time where change seems to happen quicker than ever before. NACTO has been one of my favorite resources for a while, and I'm excited for this growing list of resources helping cities effectively respond to crises. – Tim
The Right Way to Pass Fellow Pedestrians, and Other Social Distancing Tips (Citylab)
Depending on where you live, you might be wondering exactly what level of being outside is appropriate—especially if your neighborhood is also seeing higher levels of human activity right now. As Sarah Holder explains in this piece for Citylab, being a good neighbor during coronavirus “requires us to upend some of our ingrained neighborly behaviors.” She offers suggestions for developing a few new ones. – Ryan
A Social Safety Net is Possible After All (Citylab)
Those of us who have been fortunate to work from home have seemed to be more willing to express gratefulness for the service workers deemed “essential” to keeping life going. Of course, “thanks, you’re a hero” comments don’t pay the bills. But the sentiment seems to be shifting the public opinion on what we owe each member of society. Unfortunately it has taken a global pandemic and unprecedented economic calamity to generate widespread support for strengthening the social safety net. This article details a few ways in which “the coronavirus crisis has made clear to more American people and politicians what was true all along: giving workers a social safety net benefits us all.” This crisis also presents an opportunity to push forward some policies that make us all stronger in the long run. – Ryan
Podcast: Laws Prioritize Cars Over People (Talking Headways)
One of the best podcast episodes I listened to this week was the most recent edition of Talking Headways. Host Jeff Wood spoke with law professor Greg Shill about some of his recent research (Should Law Subsidize Driving?) on the “normalization of motordom and how we can’t really opt out of it, the idea of automobile supremacy, the legal subsidies to driving, and even the tax benefits associated with cars.” Highly recommend this discussion on the legal mechanisms that entrench auto-dominance and outlaw city-building. – Jordan
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