A few things to know this week: December 6, 2019
Happy Friday, friends!
Every week, we round up some of the things we read, listened to, or watched that really caught our attention. Here are just a few things we think you should know this week:
This week's things to know:
NEW on the Go Cultivate! podcast:
Chuck Marohn and the revolution we need
Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns joined the Go Cultivate! podcast to talk about his new book, what's keeping our cities from building prosperity, and what regular citizens and professionals can do about it.
And here’s what we’ve been reading:
1. Don't Miss the Middle: The Critical Role of Moderate-Priced Housing to Affordability
We talk a LOT about missing middle housing at Verdunity and how it can expand housing choice and affordability (including in a few recent episodes of our podcast). If you're on the fence, or you're still skeptical about bring missing middle housing to your community, this is the read for you. As always, Todd Litman does a masterful job of thoroughly examining the issue, starting with addressing moderate-priced housing and its role in affordability, how evaluation of a project's affordability should be more three-dimensional, and then he provides some robust examples and studies for further reading. Best of all, he ends with a list of policies any city can implement that provide the support needed to get this infill development. As he writes, "Many policies involve trade-offs between low- and moderate-priced housing development". However, it doesn't have to be this way! Look through it, I promise you'll find it incredibly helpful. – AJ
2. Concerned About Her City's Lack of Affordable Housing, a Councilwoman Decided to Build Some
Sometimes if you want to see change in your community, you have to lead change. This councilwoman is helping to tackle her city's affordable housing shortage by becoming a small developer and building a duplex on a lot next to her home. Bravo! – Kevin
3. These mayors pledged to reduce emissions. Why are they widening highways?
There are a lot of solid arguments for tearing down urban freeways. There are even more arguments against expanding them. But somehow, highway expansion is the harmful gift that keeps giving, despite causing social, fiscal, and environmental harm. I guess for some interested parties, it’s a situation like the one Taylor Swift described: “They say I did something bad / Then why’s it feel so good?” (My wife will be so proud of me for that reference.) And to answer that question, I’d say that profit has something to do with it. – 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.
Curious what an active fight over a potential highway teardown looks like, and who’s lining up on each side? Here’s a look into the discussion on TxDOT’s I-345 Feasibility Study. The highway’s current lifespan ends in 25 years; now is the time to decide whether it gets rebuilt as-is, expanded, or torn down and converted to a boulevard. This is a good read, and you probably know where we stand at this point. – Ryan
5. How to tackle Detroit's empty parking lots
Here’s an interesting opinion piece from David Guenther, founder of the Detroit: City Resurgent blog, calling for a land value tax as a way of addressing the problem of property owners sitting on vacant properties to avoid paying higher taxes. Not many U.S. cities have given the land value tax a go, but to me it seems worth a shot. – Jordan
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!
