A few things to know this week: October 4, 2019
Happy Friday, friends!
Every week, we round up some of the things we read, listened to, or watched that really caught our attention — plus anything that we wrote or recorded ourselves. Here are just a few things we think you should know this week:
This week's things to know:
First, we have two new episodes of the Go Cultivate! podcast:
So your city's on the way to going broke — with Lynda Humble
Bastrop (TX) City Manager Lynda Humble rejoins the program to talk about learning that her city was on track to bankrupt itself by its own development pattern — and the big changes they're making to reverse that trend.
Are We Doing This Right? – Tiny Homes Edition
In this installment of our “Are We Doing This Right?” series, we take a look at some of the common assumptions about tiny homes, how people are using them, what laws are applicable to them (and what’s often left unclear), which cities have embraced them, and whether other cities should follow their lead.
Now, what we’ve been reading and listening to:
Americans Are Taking Out Ridiculously Long Auto Loans
When we plan and design neighborhoods and cities that require regular access to an automobile, we’re causing a whole host of unintended consequences that heavily burden individuals, not to mention the local governments that have to maintain all that (overbuilt) infrastructure. Here’s yet another way the physical layout of our communities is putting people in a particularly bad spot: people are going into debt to buy cars that they may truly never recover from, just to carry out daily needs. It doesn’t have to be like this. It’s possible to structure our communities in ways that don’t require a car; we did it for millennia! We can’t change the fact that we’ve precipitated this crisis by building irresponsibly for decades, but we can radically shift our focus back to building places for people. We have to do it for our cities to literally not go bankrupt, and we ought to do it because people’s lives are on the line. Key quote: "With average interest rates at 6 percent for new cars and 10 percent for used cars—a big uptick in the years after the 2009 recession when credit began flowing following billions in government bailouts to automakers and banks—there's a high likelihood that car owners, like students, won't pay off their loans." – Jordan
In Mid-Density Zones, Portland Has a Choice: Garages or Low Prices?
A new analysis done by the City of Portland (OR) shows some striking (if also obvious) results of requiring car storage (aka parking) on residential lots. It turns out that requiring parking onsite incentivizes building more expensive (larger) units that house fewer families; an example the author of this piece cites is building townhomes vs stacked flats. (Lots of good charts, stats, and figures in this article, if you’re so inclined.) Of course, allowing developers not to build parking is no guarantee that they won’t go ahead and do it anyway, responding to the fact that Portland, like almost every U.S. city, is still largely auto-oriented. But that won’t change on its own. And that’s where it’s clear that what we allow and require in our zoning and building codes reflects and embodies our values. "Mandating off-street parking, even when we’re fully aware that it makes more and cheaper homes impossible, requires a judgment that housing cars is more important than housing people.” – Jordan
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 talk a lot about the resource gaps that cities across the country are faced with. This week, Dallas Assistant City Manager Majed Al-Ghafry gave a briefing to the city council about the City's maintenance needs for their road networks. According to their estimates, they need to be spending $212 million dollars per year on road maintenance. The amount the City spends currently? About $54 million, which doesn't include bond money. In the ACM's words, they need to work "smart and hard" to reduce this gap. Surely more productive land use and less overbuilt infrastructure is part of the solution! – Tim
If you’re not already a regular listener of the podcast 99% Invisible, that’s your business, but I can tell you you’re missing out on some great storytelling and some fascinating discussions about design. The latest episode, “The Help-Yourself City,” centers on the concept of “informal urbanism” (of which tactical urbanism is a much-covered part). It goes some places you might not expect. – Jordan
Strong Towns podcast series on the new book
Speaking of podcasts, our buddies over at Strong Towns have been running a great series this week. To promote and celebrate Chuck Marohn’s brand-new book, Strong Towns: A Bottom-up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity, they put out five new episodes that pick apart each chapter in the book. We think you should also read the thing cover-to-cover, and buy some extra copies for friends in local government, but you’ll get a lot of mileage out of just hearing these discussions. – Jordan
Upcoming keynotes and workshops!
Check out our Upcoming Events page to see if our busy October and November schedule brings us anywhere near you. (Teaser: we’ve got gigs upcoming in San Antonio; Chaffee County, CO; Brownsville, and more!)
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!
