A few things to know this week: October 11, 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:
Check out the latest episode of our Go Cultivate! podcast:
How smaller cities should prepare for disasters — with Laura Clemons
Resiliency expert Laura Clemons talks about the things small communities need to do to be ready to bounce back from a disaster — well before one actually strikes. We also asked Laura about the steps cities need to take to take advantage of a new FEMA Pre-Disaster Mitigation grant here.
Now, on to what we’ve been reading:
1. We Need Growth. But Only If It Generates Real Wealth.
The unproductive way in which cities have grown over the past many decades has had some pretty ugly consequences—and inevitably fall hardest on the working class, who can least afford to escape them. Does that mean growth itself is bad and should stop? Of course it doesn’t. But it does mean we can’t keep repeating the cycle of unproductive growth. Daniel Herriges of Strong Towns steps in with a fantastic piece about what productive growth looks like. To simplify things, he presents three rules: [1] Productive growth means filling in, fleshing out, and maturing. [2] Productive growth looks like ecological succession. [3] Productive growth generates a real return on infrastructure investment. This piece is full of important insights that help cut through the noise of an overly simplistic “growth vs. no growth” dichotomy. It’s the start of a more helpful discussion on dealing with the unfortunate legacy of our recent past. – Jordan
2. How a block party augurs the equitable future of Indianapolis
Longtime listeners of our Go Cultivate! podcast may remember a very early episode we did with Joanna Taft of Indianapolis’ Harrison Center. In that discussion, she explained the concept of “pre-enactment,” or reimagining a neighborhood the way (its residents think) it ought to be. Harrison Center, an arts organization which sits in the middle of a majority Black neighborhood that’s increasingly feeling development pressures, has sought to preempt the tide of (economic and cultural) gentrification by forming close bonds with neighbors, interviewing them individually about what their desires are for the neighborhood, and telling the many human stories of the neighborhood. This month is the third annual PreEnactIndy event, which is focused on building and acting out (literally) the neighborhood as neighbors envision its future. Crucially, that future includes the current residents—who these days have every reason to fear they will lose the neighborhood they love. The storytelling has a concrete aim: not to inoculate the surrounding blocks from change, but to make it unavoidably clear that the neighborhood isn’t a blank slate. And to influence the direction of change in a way that is genuinely inclusive of the people living there. And, importantly, in the two years since the first PreEnactIndy, there have already been victories. Read on for more. (And check out that interview if you haven’t, or want a refresher!) – Ryan
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.
If you read our newsletter, there's a good chance you love your community, see some issues/problems in it, and want to find out how to solve those issues. In this article, written by the CEO of my local (Shreveport) Community Foundation, Kristi Gustavson outlines how to bring up community criticism in a constructive way. In your community, the "chronic complainer" and the "venting complainer" can actually have negative effects on themselves and the community, but the "instrumental complainer" highlights problems in the community so that they can present solutions. – Tim
4. Collision course: why are cars killing more and more pedestrians?
This is a good, longer piece from The Guardian highlighting a reality that we think more folks should consider an all-out emergency. For drivers, "roads are safer than ever” (claims the article’s teaser) – but for people on foot, they are getting deadlier. Why could that be? Prevailing road design prioritizes speed; it doesn’t prioritize life. There are softer ways to say it, but in the end, that is the result. Just yesterday I learned that a relative was struck by three cars while walking and is in critical condition. I don’t know the specifics of the situation, but it seems safe to say that if we designed streets and roads to account for the fact that people get around in more ways than driving (even if they’d actually rather drive), he wouldn’t have been in whatever situation ended him up in the ER. It’s frustrating to continue to write and talk about this, but it’s necessary. In our own engineering work and in our planning work, we don’t take this responsibility to uphold human life lightly. We don’t imagine that commutes occur (or should occur) only in cars, or that car trips should be frictionless. We frequently talk about the fact that we take a fiscally-informed approach to both ends of the planning and engineering spectrum, but when it comes to street design, human (especially pedestrian) safety is really the first stop. Turns out those two tend to overlap. Also turns out it’s still pretty lucrative for a lot of firms to design and build roadways with one user in mind: the driver. – Jordan
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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!