A few things to know this week: November 8, 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:
Are We Doing This Right? – Placemaking Edition (Part 2)
Placemaking is one of those ubiquitous urbanist buzzwords. After discussing what it means and why it came about in Part 1, we dig into many of the criticisms of placemaking. Give it a listen!
And now, here’s a selection of what caught the Verdunity eye this week:
1. In Detroit, A New Type of Agricultural Neighborhood Has Emerged
Detroit famously has shrunk in the past decades to about a third of its peak population, and that has translated to a massive amount of vacant properties. The city’s explosion of urban agriculture isn’t a new story—though it is an important one—but its first “agrihood” might be an important step forward. This agrihood is set in a much different context than the suburban and rural examples across the country; its goal is addressing urban food insecurity in a sustainable fashion. I think it’s worth following, especially for cities that have experienced similar population decline. (If the subject of Detroit interests you, we recently put up a podcast episode with Jerry Paffendorf of Loveland Technologies, and we talked at length about the city.) – Jordan
2. The National Debt Is Now More than $23 Trillion. What Does That Mean?
Our national debt has now topped $23 trillion dollars! The part that's most alarming and concerning to me personally is that interest payments are now over $1 billion per day, making interest the fastest growing part of the federal budget. Many state and local agencies around the country are following a similar track, where dependence on debt is rising and interest payments are cutting into funds available for personnel, infrastructure, and public safety. To reverse this trend, we've got stop building infrastructure and development that doesn't pay for itself, prioritize development that aligns with what residents are willing and able to pay for, and focus on revitalizing existing neighborhoods and cultivating wealth at the local level. – Kevin
3. Montgomery planners will survey every street to see how safe they are for pedestrians
This piece recognizes Montgomery County and their approach to developing a Pedestrian Master Plan. First, they started a #walkinghere campaign to encourage pedestrians to share their issues in navigating their community on foot. Then, they embarked on a survey of each and every road and street in the county. This has included metrics to systematically rank them by varying levels of “pedestrian comfort." The map is made available online so that residents can follow the progress. It’s a great example of truly taking the time to do the work rather than relying on maps or aerials to speed up the time of putting maps together to guide community investments, and being transparent in the process. It’s also a concept we need to be talking more about; it’s not enough, for example, to just put in sidewalks. Context matters. Pedestrian comfort matters. It isn’t enough to simply install infrastructure. That doesn’t check all the boxes without further study and customization. – AJ
4. Dallas Tornado Leaves Trail of Damage; Storm Causes Panic at Memphis Airport
This piece on the aftermath of the Dallas tornadoes touches on the necessary steps for disaster preparedness that cities can and need to be taking. With our recent podcast episode with Laura Clemons on disaster fresh on my mind, I’m hoping that there will be a more aggressive planning approach to Dallas' disaster preparedness plan. My hope is that your city or town will not have to react to a disaster in order to grow its preparedness, but rather be proactive in its implementation. – Ryan
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We’ve highlighted some grassroots community engagement efforts in the past (including an early episode of the Go Cultivate! podcast, with Joanna Taft of the Harrison Center in Indianapolis), and this 12-month project in Brownsville, Texas, is a particularly noteworthy example. (It also has some key similarities to the “PreEnact Indy” event put together by Joanna's organization.) Las Imaginistas are a socially engaged art collective that focuses on "a variety of community development issues including development of microeconomies and the inclusion of community voice in regional planning processes.” We at Verdunity are firm believers that cities can become more equitable and functional places to be if planning is brought down to the street level, genuinely seeking out the struggles and desires of the quietest members of society—and quickly & incrementally acting on them. We’ll get into this more in an upcoming episode of our podcast, but here’s a key quote from the piece: Typically, a city has a town hall meeting to discuss a particular issue, and according to Serrano, that feels more like a strategy to defuse community dissent or to advance an agenda rather than genuine listening. “[Through this process,] people had opportunities to say what they had to say. People felt that.” – Jordan
6. To Influence Local Politics, Showing Up to Vote Isn’t Enough
Voting every now and then (or even consistently) is not enough if you want to influence how things get done in your community. A more effective way to help your elected officials get a feel for the broader communities' interests is to form citizen advocacy groups around shared issues. As this article points out, a well organized advocacy group with members crossing the demographic spectrum of the community can help drive meaningful change through the local political process. – Kevin
7. Well There's Your Problem | Episode 5: The Politics of Traffic Engineering (Video)
I’m a big fan of this guy’s offbeat and incisive videos about planning and design topics, and they ways they intersect with politics. I haven’t made my way all the way through his latest (and pretty lengthy) upload, but the topic is a commonly discussed on here at the Verdunity office. If you want an irreverent and wryly entertaining discussion of (just some of) the history and outcomes of the politics of traffic engineering, put this video on while you’re cooking dinner tonight. :) – 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!
