A few things to know this week: October 29th, 2021
Throwing Good Money After Bad Car Infrastructure - Wonderland Road
If you're not following the Not Just Bikes channel on YouTube, you need to be! In this episode, he discusses a topic that is all too common in cities today: spending millions to widen roadways to mitigate traffic. He uses examples from his hometown suburb and Amsterdam to explain how the widening process actually exacerbates car dependency and makes traffic worse (induced demand), accelerates the fiscal decline of cities, makes things less safe for the people living there, and more. If you're looking for a resource to help inspire your local officials or pro-road expansion groups in your community to think differently, this is a good one to share.
–Kevin
Bogus "Historic" Districts: The New Exclusionary Zoning?
Mark this in the Why-didn’t-I-see-this-coming? column. In an article over at Sightline Michael Andersen lays out how local homeowners in Portland have just begun to conquer the new frontier of getting bogus historical designations for neighborhoods to keep the riff-raff out. I’m rolling my eyes so hard over here I’m giving myself a headache. This is a fascinating article and gives a pretty thorough overview of how various housing bans have come, one after the next in Portland (and other places too) that effectively continue the same segregating zoning rules that were made illegal by Buchanan v. Warley back in 1917.
Really, when will this end? Cities across the country are dealing with housing crises of epic proportions – we have to build more housing everywhere. We need to thicken our neighborhoods and we need our communities to bring people together, not find new ways to keep them apart.
–Marshall
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.
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:
Hey, friends who love cities! If you're looking for a place to discuss these topics (and more) with like-minded peers who want to help create a more resilient community, check out our Community Cultivators Network. It's free to join, and we are currently working to build new features for our 2021 relaunch, so stay tuned! We'll arm you with the content, ideas, and support to take small impactful steps to cultivate change.
