Could Biden's infrastructure bill help heal the scars highways created? - Virginia Mercury

A thoughtful commentary that I think does a good job of covering how the infrastructure bill can do good but that there are many obstacles to its success. We know how destructive highway systems have been to the urban landscape, but issues of both equity and economics can sometimes make it difficult to know where to begin as we look forward to the process of knitting together fractured communities. This is a good commentary, but I actually stumbled upon the Virginia Mercury’s author page for Wyatt Gordon, the author of this piece and found a whole collection of articles that I think provide some interesting viewpoints on a lot of issues that would appeal to the readers of this newsletter. So my real pick for this week is a deep catalog of good articles you can peruse over your holidays this year. Check out Wyatt Gordon’s work here. –MARSHALL

Strong Towns Podcast Episode: Two Different Languages

I love the way Strong Towns has continued to build a narrative around State Street - the four lane highway in Springfield, Massachusetts that was a central piece of Confessions of a Recovering Engineer. This episode revisits a recent public meeting focused on fixing the speeding problems on this thoroughfare. Chuck plays snippets of audio files from council members, advocates, and engineers at the meeting, and explains some of the underlying frustrations and messages in their back and forth to each other. If you are a citizen who wants to understand where engineers are coming from, or an engineer who wants a better look at your assumptions, I highly recommend giving this episode a listen. –TIM

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