A few things to know this week: April 30, 2021
This week’s things to know:
Richardson looking at multiple ways to address aging infrastructure (Community Impact)
Cities across the country and here in our home state of Texas are starting to feel the fiscal impacts of the suburban growth explosion of the past 7 decades. The massive amounts of infrastructure and neighborhoods built by developers when cities were growing in the 70s and 80s are now in need of replacement, but cities don't have the money. The default approach for managing streets in most cities is to direct a portion of the general fund to preventative maintenance that extends the life of streets, and then use bond elections (taxpayer funded debt) to fund the more expensive reconstruction projects. This works when you only have a few streets to rebuild every 3-5 years, but the math doesn't work well when a city faces a large and growing backlog of deteriorating roads. Cities pour millions into a bond, fix a few streets, and then repeat the process a few years later only to see that their backlog has increased and taxpayers' willingness and ability to fund larger and more frequent bond programs is waning. To make matters worse, projects that get funded are frequently put back exactly the same and prioritization processes rarely consider a fundamental question - if this development pattern and infrastructure projects left us with a huge resource gap and neighborhoods people often fail to stay and reinvest in, why are we using valuable dollars to put back the same thing? Our cities need to be doing the math and having the hard conversations about how to close the gap, not wasting valuable taxpayer dollars doing bond programs that reinforce a development pattern that is not financially solvent. -Kevin
A Brief History Of How Racism Shaped Interstate Highways (NPR)
You can either listen or read here about what Deborah Archer recently wrote for the Iowa Law Review about how transportation policy affected the development of Black communities. Archer is a professor at the New York University School of Law and national board president of the American Civil Liberties. She skims the surface on how planners of the interstate highway system, which began to take shape after the Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, routed some highways directly, and sometimes purposefully, through Black and brown communities. It left deep psychological scars on neighborhoods that lost homes, churches and schools. She says the president will face major challenges in trying to rectify historical inequities. -Ryan
Strong Towns (Not Just Bikes)
This new video series from popular YouTube channel Not Just Bikes provides a solid overview of core principles and concepts from Strong Towns, a group we continue to draw inspiration from as we advocate for fiscally responsible development and infrastructure. As the host says in the first video, this collection of 5 minute videos is perfect "if you're too lazy to read the damn book". -Kevin
A Lesson for Urban Design: Turn the Planning Process Upside Down (D Magazine)
There is a lot to be said on how the public health crisis of the last year plus has affected the way we interact with our public/shared spaces. In this article, the claim is made that the trick is to allow ideas to percolate up from need or out of neighborhood-level inspiration. Find ways to pilot things temporarily, see if they work, and only then try to amend the city codes to allow for their continuation. That is largely the inverse of the top-down way things get done now, and it is the long-term lesson that parklets – and the pandemic experience – can offer the city. This version and iteration on the incremental and prototyping planning process is something we as a team are passionate about, and the health concerns of today have shown that turning the urban design process upside down can help set things right using this method. -Ryan
Here's the standard disclaimer: We always encourage our team members to freely share their thoughts and opinions, both in these newsletters and elsewhere. Given that, opinions expressed by any one member do not necessarily represent the views of the company as a whole.
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.
