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.
The eternal, essential apartment: Apartments have been built for over a millennia — from four-story blocks in Rome to apartments in Teotihuacan, Mexico. History shows these buildings have made it easier for people to live in cities and contribute to their vibrancy. Apartments have also evolved into structures used for rethinking cities, and today they are thought to be one solution to our climate crisis. (Ashley Gardini | JSTOR Daily)
Reckless driving needs more enforcement: University of Iowa Law Professor Greg Shill argues that street design alone won’t curb reckless driving. He argues that prosecution of behaviors such as speeding, drunk driving and avoiding seat belts need to be a priority as well. Activists have noted that traffic enforcement targets some racial groups more than others. But documented drop-offs in enforcement have coincided with greater numbers of crashes on state highways. (Greg Shill | The Atlantic) (This is a gift link that should be available to everyone.)
Where the wildfire ends: The urban wildfires intensified by hurricane-speed Santa Anna winds in the Los Angeles region should not be categorized as wildfires burning a house in the forest. Rather, think of them like conflagrations that use buildings to fuel more intense fires. Our understanding of the fires could help us figure out sustainable ways to rebuild as well as how to avoid future disasters that are likely to be more frequent with the conditions created by climate change. (Henry Grabar | Slate) See also: an excellent Los Angeles Times article with two fire experts.
Surveillance technology rewiring our brains: Research published in the journal “Neuroscience of Consciousness” shows that the surveillance technology omnipresent in our built environment has rewired our brains and how we navigate social situations. The researchers found the human evolutionary ability to recognize another human’s gaze has been heightened, and this change could increase mental health issues such as social anxiety disorder and psychosis. (Kiley Seymour and Roger Koenig | The Conversation)
Modular homes for Western states workers: Employers in the Western United States are using prefabricated and modular homes to fill housing needs for their employees as the national shortage continues. Families that would have left expensive communities such as Jackson Hole are now getting some help. And the modular homes are more affordable because they are built off-site, where the cost of construction is cheaper. (Hanna Merzbach | Marketplace)
This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re at Mpact in Philadelphia chatting with King County Metro’s Rachel DeCordoba about her work educating the next generation of transit riders.
Quote of the Week
“The range of energy literacy was quite wide from one home to the next. And when I went somewhere as an energy coach, it was never to moralize about energy use. I never said, ‘Oh, you’re using way too much.’ It was always working on it with the households, depending on what people need for their homes.”
— Joseph Llewellyn, a researcher with MIT’s Senseable City Lab in MIT News discussing a successful program to reduce energy poverty.