A few things to know this week: August 28, 2020
Happy Friday, friends! Every week we collect some of the best things that members of our Verdunity team read, watched, or listened to over the course of the week—plus anything new from us.
This week on the Go Cultivate! podcast:
Building a culture of fiscal sustainability – with Noel Bernal & Helen Ramirez
Noel Bernal and Helen Ramirez, the city management duo from Brownsville, Texas, discuss fiscally sustainable decision-making and leadership team building.
This week’s things to know:
Revenue Shortfalls, Low Morale and New Technology: A Survey of Government Leaders in the Age of Covid-19 (Route Fifty) & Capital Budgets and Maintenance in Line to Take Hits, Local Government Survey Finds (Route Fifty)
ELGL, The Atlas, and SeeClickFix teamed up to conduct a survey of local government officials to get feedback on how COVID-19 is impacting staff morale, potential governmental cutbacks, and the technology they're using to navigate new challenges. Public works and infrastructure spending is one of the areas expected to see significant cuts. – Kevin
The Broken Algorithm That Poisoned American Transportation (Vice)
In this excellent piece for Vice, Aaron Gordon explains the outsize impact that transportation modeling has on decision-making at the local level—and the fatally flawed assumptions these models are based on. They routinely result in perpetual highway expansion, ostensibly as a response to anticipated growth in traffic and congestion, which then generates even more traffic and congestion—a phenomenon known as induced demand. “Experts have known about induced demand for generations, yet we keep adding more highways in the Sisyphean task of attempting to build our way out of rush hour traffic.” The article goes on to point out the ways that traffic demand models are often quite wrong, and the ways they tend to assume fixed behavior and land use patterns over decades. But “the forecast accuracies—or lack thereof—are almost besides the point, because any project that changes the built environment will alter the way people behave.” So why do we keep using them in the way we do? The ugly answer is that “the model shuts people up. It may not be honest, but in the world of transportation politics, there’s nothing more valuable than that.” Yikes. – Jordan
Opinion | Jerry Seinfeld: So You Think New York Is ‘Dead’ (New York Times)
I've heard comedians described as 'masters of observation'—and this piece by Jerry Seinfeld brings some levity to the debate about how New York City will adapt to the coronavirus. Peppered in with his typical humor are some great insights into what draws people to the city, what drives people to live elsewhere, and what keeps people coming back. In the end, it’s the energy of a place that draws us there and keeps us there. – Tim
US cities are spending millions on trees to fight heat – but are their plans equitable? (The Guardian)
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.
Yes, we need to plant more trees in cities—especially as they become hotter year over year! And, at the same time, we have to be aware that the neighborhoods that suffer the most from heat island effects are usually poorer neighborhoods. In fact, a study of 108 U.S. urban areas showed that “formerly redlined neighborhoods were hotter than their non-redlined neighbors 94% of the time.” Some cities have adopted and are pursuing goals of a certain percentage of tree coverage, but that alone doesn’t mean it will have equitable results: “Tree equity is about more than just planting more trees,” says Eric Candela. “You can plant more trees and not achieve equity.” So what are the challenges cities are facing in this respect, and what are they doing about it? Read on to find out. – Jordan
Creating livable Workshop Neighborhoods (CNU Public Square)
Last week, I shared an article about a recent University of Arizona study that predicts a shift in buyer interest from exclusive suburban-style homes to a more diverse mix of housing choices located in walkable neighborhoods. This article references research from Rice University's Kinder Institute discussing the growing demand for what researcher Bill Fulton calls Suburban Workshops, and highlights examples from the author's home neighborhood in Ann Arbor, Michigan to illustrate the many benefits of walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods. Whether you call them "walkable," "complete," "20-minute," or "livable workshop" neighborhoods, more people are realizing how this development pattern can provide an improved quality of life for residents, strong local business ecosystems, and a more financially productive and resilient business model for local governments. Now we just need to build more of them so they're more accessible and affordable to all the people who are and will be looking to move to one. – Kevin
The Problem with Solutions (Places Journal)
This lengthy piece by Rob Holmes, an assistant professor of landscape architecture at Auburn University, challenges out notion that, with enough ingenuity and effort, landscapes are solvable problems. Instead, he argues for a non-solutionist design approach—a way of engaging “troubled landscapes without presuming to fix them.” Here is a teaser: “Landscapes everywhere are shaped by complex, asymmetric power relations at different densities and scales. Everything about them is dynamic—forms, structures, cycles, trajectories—and all of it subject to natural and anthropogenic forces that frustrate human desires for stability and control. What appears to be a problem from one angle may be desirable from another, and vice versa. Designers have always understood these truths, on some level, but that hasn’t stopped us from endeavoring to solve landscapes, over and over.” – Jordan
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.
Don’t miss out on our upcoming (virtual) events!
TML Annual Conference (October 14–16)
Kevin, AJ, and Monte Anderson will be presenting on "Cultivating Vibrant Communities and Local Economies with the Resources You Have."
APA Virtual Cross-Chapter Collaborative (October 5–9)
Kevin presenting with Tom Yantis (Asst. City Manager & Director of Development Services at City of Taylor, TX) on "The Economics of Land Use."
AJ will cohost a discussion titled “Taking Action to Minimize Unconscious Bias” and will be a panelist on the “Brainstorming Public Engagement – Diversity & Inclusion” interactive session.
Texas Downtown Association Conference (November 9–12)
Kevin will be presenting on "Bridging the Resource Gap: Cultivating Strong Communities with the Resources You Have."
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.
