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.
Rest of the world building subways: Big cities around the world are building more metro lines to accommodate residents’ transportation needs. But while construction continues and networks expand elsewhere, the United States falls further behind on building new infrastructure. Los Angeles and Seattle are expanding fixed guideways, but many other major cities such as Boston, New York and San Francisco are not. (Benjamin Schneider | Fast Company)
Paris’ Olympic bike revolution: Highlighted by the Olympic Games currently taking place in the city, Paris has been making changes to streets to promote cycling and reduce dependence on automobiles. Key streets have been pedestrianized, bike share and transit options expanded, and 250 million euro have been pledged for bike infrastructure. The changes show what a little political will can do to move a city forward more sustainably. (Ron Johnson | Momentum Magazine)
Transforming Gowanus: The Gowanus neighborhood, named after a notoriously polluted waterway in Brooklyn, has seen a huge transformation since a rezoning effort began in 2016 and finalized in 2021. Permits have been issued for over 7,400 housing units in an area that was slow to change due to its lack of transit access and history as an industrial center. Now a group of residents monitor the progress to make sure they get out of the change what was promised. (Karrie Jacobs | The Nation)
Saving yourself in storage: Writing in Slate, Judie Poole tells a story about her mother facing housing insecurity during the financial crisis while keeping a vast hoard of possessions in self-storage facilities. She hoards and keeps and saves everything but money in hopes of putting it back together again as she stays with family and friends. Like many others, she explains, she keeps things that remind her of the past because she’s tired of losing. (Judie Poole | Slate)
Reducing transportation emissions through land use: Transportation is the single largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. However, while other sectors are seeing some success in reducing carbon pollution, the transportation sector has been slower to move. Noting that places with higher housing and job densities also have lower transportation emissions because locals need to travel less, Yonah Freemark argues for public investment in transit-oriented development and related infrastructure. (Yonah Freemark | Urban Institute)
This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re joined by Kevin Kelley, founding partner and principal at Shook Kelley. We talk about his book “Irreplaceable: How to Create Extraordinary Places that Bring People Together.”
Quote of the Week
“Today’s report shows that the [Ultra Low Emissions Zone] is working even better than expected. The expansion to outer London is already having a significant effect – driving down levels of pollution, taking old polluting cars off our roads and bringing cleaner air to millions more Londoners. We are now set to get London’s air to within legal limits by 2025, 184 years earlier than previously projected.”
— London mayor Sadiq Khan in The Guardian, on the impact of the Ultra Low Emissions Zone on air pollution in the city.