A few things to know this week: July 24, 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—plus anything new from us.
This week on the Go Cultivate! podcast:
Are We Doing This Right? – Comprehensive Plans Edition
It’s a big topic, and AJ and Jordan do their best to … comprehensively 😉 answer the question of whether we’re doing comprehensive plans right. This was a fun one to record. Give it a listen, and then ask, what is your city or town getting right and wrong when it comes to comp plans? We think there’s always room for reflection and improvement.
This week’s things to know:
States need to stop using political math and improve their rainy day funds (Prairie State Wire)
Senior Research Fellow Eileen Norcross says the fiscal health of states and cities all depends on how you do the math. Conventional budgeting processes use what she calls "political math," where balanced budgets and surpluses are emphasized, but unfunded pension and street/infrastructure liabilities are not fully accounted for. "I don't know if it's mathematically possible for states like Illinois and New Jersey to pay what is owed," Norcross said. – Kevin
The ADA is turning 30, but the built environment is still far from inclusive (Smart Cities Dive)
The ADA is turning 30. Let's talk about how far we've come, right? Well... While parking spaces are checked as part of routine plan reviews, there are many accessibility issues that remain undetected and approved without discussion. Plan reviews shouldn't just be about checking boxes—they should also be considering how people can (or can’t) use the space as it is currently designed. In addition, why aren't we thinking about how people can (or can’t) live? As the author writes, "fewer than 1% of single-family homes in America are move-in ready for a wheelchair user, a staggering fact considering that over half of Americans live in single-family houses." The article ends in a stirring challenge to a variety of professionals to step up and do more. It will make you think again about your definition of inclusion. – AJ
Can a neighborhood rebuild wealth for the people who actually live there? (Strong Towns)
When it comes to people-conscious development, context is everything. In a world where real estate investment opportunities skew towards remote profits, small developers like the one in this article are helping to reverse the trend and allow neighborhood residents to benefit financially from the improvement of their neighborhood. Joel Dixon is a faculty member of the Incremental Development Alliance, principal at Urban Oasis Development, and developer of Atlanta's west side neighborhoods “inside the beltway.” I hope you will give the article a look and let it shape how you look at equity in real estate. – Tim
How Dollar Stores Became Magnets for Crime and Killing (ProPublica & The New Yorker)
Dollar stores, indicator species of neighborhoods in decline, are booming. And, as this long piece reveals, they’re doing so by fostering violence and neglect in poor communities. According to some of the criminologists quoted in the piece, crime isn’t an inevitable phenomenon. “It’s opportunistic. If there’s no opportunity, there’s no crime.” Which is to say, the violence that occurs in dollar stores around the country doesn’t have to happen—those stores just happen to present the right set of circumstances. Dollar store companies have made decisions that put people at risk of violence. They’re literally making a killing from it. – Jordan
It's Time to Fix America's Urban Sidewalk Gap (Bloomberg)
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.
At Verdunity we do a lot of research and analysis on the quality of streets and surface infrastructure, looking at how it impacts a city's infrastructure deficit and what cities might be able to do moving forward to curb that negative trend. This article highlights what we have seen repeatedly in cities, noting the trend of relatively newer infrastructure construction prioritizing vehicular movement above all. We consistently advocate for a for a more human-focused streetscape. That means making it possible, and comfortable, for people to move about their neighborhoods under their own power. Not just certain blocks, not just certain neighborhoods—everywhere. So, what is the state of your city’s sidewalk infrastructure? – Ryan
Hamilton’s Pop-Up Street Patios business popping amid pandemic (The Spec)
Pop-up patios are popping up everywhere in response to COVID. If you're looking to build some in your community, the guys at Pop-Up Street Patios can help. – Kevin
Toward a Shared Understanding of Pedestrian Safety: An Exploration of Context, Patterns, and Impacts (Pedestrian and Bicycle Information Center)
This resource highlights some shortcomings, improvements, and opportunities for change in the way infrastructure is organized for pedestrians. – Ryan
Rich Americans Emit up to 15 Times As Much Carbon As Their Poorer Neighbors (Treehugger)
It’s not the crisis on the front pages every day, but climate change keeps doing its thing. A new study on the carbon footprint of household energy use in the US confirms some obvious things, like the fact that big homes have big energy footprints. And it urges that swift, national-scale action is needed immediately. “The form of the current US housing stock is not only the outcome of consumer preferences, but also policies enacted since the 1950s that led to coordinated action across sectors (e.g., financial, construction, transport) and scales (individual, municipal, state, and national).” – Jordan
The Degree of Urbanisation's Effect on Happiness (Gallup)
In a recent study, Gallup collected data on the general happiness of individuals living in areas of differing levels of development; rural, towns, semi-dense areas, and urban cities. The study is an interesting approach to a common question. Their findings are backed by questions and answers from 360,000 people. – Ryan
Here's the standard disclaimer: We always encourage our team members to freely share their thoughts and opinions, both in these newsletters and elsewhere. Given that, opinions expressed by any one member do not necessarily represent the views of the company as a whole.
Friday, July 31 @ 1:30pm Central
Don't miss next week's webinar!
You've completed assessments to vet your community's vision and values, review existing plans and resources, and prioritize desired outcomes. These are important steps toward maximizing existing plans and tools to make meaningful progress right now with the resources you have.
The next step is to reach out into the community to identify, connect, and empower people and local organizations who have time, talent, and treasure to contribute and develop a plan to work toward your shared goals in a collaborative and community-wide manner.
Join us for the next webinar in our Emerge Stronger series, where we'll walk through strategies we use to help communities organize and leverage partnerships with citizens, businesses, philanthropic groups, and others to work collaboratively to improve their cities and neighborhoods.
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!
