Every day, The Overhead Wire collects news about cities and sends the links to their email list. At the end of the week they take some of the most popular stories and post them to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to Streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region. They are national and international links, sometimes entertaining or absurd but often useful.
Roommate matching online: Durango, Colorado is considering using online programs similar to dating apps to match people looking for a room with homeowners who have room to spare. The hope is to ease the housing crisis and give homeowners, especially aging ones, an option for help with chores or rides. However, more homeowners would have to participate before the app would launch. (Christian Burney | Durango Herald)
Universal basic mobility pilot gets bigger: After the success of an initial universal mobility pilot in Oakland, California, the program is being extended to 1,000 residents in West Oakland. The program puts $320 on pre-paid debit cards for low-income residents that can be used for transit, Amtrak and shared mobility. The initial pilot reduced driving 23% and helped 40% of participants change the way they travel. (Terry Castleman | Los Angeles Times)
Creating cool corridors: Cities can have a much higher temperature during the summer than surrounding suburbs or small towns due to the urban heat island effect. The counter this, cities like Stuttgart in Germany have created cold-air corridors — which include green strips, railway lines and wide tree-lined streets — to pull air from the countryside into the city. Cold air stays low to the ground so it’s important to have spaces without buildings, which can block air flow. (Gero Reuter | Duetsche Welle)
Forgotten light rail history: Early light rail lines in the United States were built as lower-cost alternatives to metros. But they also came with greater connectivity in their system planning than more recent system expansion. Uday Schultz argues that early success of systems in places like Calgary underscores the importance of thinking of transit as a networked system, not as individual lines on a map. (Udah Schultz | Home Signal)
Shrinking homes and hallways: In a new survey, architectural designers say that homes will continue to get smaller as prices increase. Homes built in 2024 had a median of 116 square feet less than in 2023, and many designers have decided to get rid of hallways to create more livable space. Residents also need less space given that household items such as televisions and stereos have shrunk, too. (Julie Taylor | Realtor.com)
This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re chatting with Tracy Hadden Loh of the Brookings Institution about impacts of the pandemic on downtowns, activity centers and transit usage. We chat about creating activity center cluster maps and a recent report entitled “Building Better on Philadelphia.”
Quote of the Week
“All weekend long, folks were coming up to me, expressing their love of the map and the progression of events. Enabling walking from event to event increased the social nature of the weekend. I’m honestly blown away that it worked so well. It was a hypothesis I had, and this was a successful experiment.”
— Los Angeles Design Weekend (LADW) founder Holland Denvir in Dezeen discussing the benefits of a walkable LADW tour program
Photo at top by Aspen Metzger on Unsplash