Every day, The Overhead Wire collects national and international news about cities and sends the links to their email list. At the end of the week they post some of the most popular stories to Greater Greater Washington, a group blog similar to Streets.mn that focuses on urban issues in the D.C. region.
Vehicular homelessness: One California lawmaker wants to help students experiencing homelessness by ensuring that California state colleges and community colleges create a parking program that allows students to live safely in their vehicles while they attend school. A second article on a similar theme describes the posh Colorado ski towns that allow resort employees to sleep overnight in their vehicles in certain parking lots. (Eric He | Politico and Rukmini Callimachi and Erin Schaff | New York Times)
Texas legislators against road diets: Republican lawmakers in Texas are targeting street design that focuses on traffic safety by filing a bill to limit cities from reducing car lanes for bikes and buses. Some legislators worry that the broad language may curtail safety efforts and restrict local decision making on sustainable transportation. The bill would outlaw (de)congestion pricing as well. (Megan Kimble | Houston Chronicle)
Anti-affordable housing?: The Rhode Island town of Johnston, a suburb of Providence with a population of just 30,000 people, is reclaiming a piece of property from affordable housing developers allegedly to stop a new 252-unit development. Eminent domain has been getting more attention after the Kelo vs. New London Supreme Court case in 2005, which allowed a municipal entity to take private property but also limits seizures under false motives. More proof is emerging that Johnston Mayor Joseph Polisena doesn’t want affordable housing in the community; this case could set a national precedent in that regard. (Jingnan Peng and Mackenzie Farkus | Christian Science Monitor)
Art as urbanism critique: A new art project by John Pobojewski entitled “Pillage Purge Plunder” critiques megacity projects such as NEOM in Saudi Arabia that he feels are socially and environmentally irresponsible. The artist challenges visitors to rethink how we design livable cities and how we could harness new technologies to get positive change. (Kim Tidwell | Print Magazine)
The good-car tax guide: Transport and Environment has published its third “Good Tax Guide,” which compares car taxation schemes for new passenger vehicles in 31 countries in order to find the greenest. The results show that most of the European Union’s largest car markets offer few incentives for people to purchase electric vehicles over existing gasoline offerings. (Transport and Environment)
This week on the Talking Headways podcast, we’re joined by Kyle Paoletta to talk about his book “American Oasis: Finding the Future in the Cities of the Southwest.”
Quote of the Week
“I’d like to see alternative housing and the repurposing of structures be more accepted and easier for people to do. A lot of towns and municipalities don’t accept tiny living or converted vehicles. But imagine what we could do with all of the decommissioned schools buses, box trucks and airplanes. We might not have an unhoused population.”
— Alex Eaves, founder and director of Escape the Waste, in the Substack Urban futures | Frugal growth | Experiential learning.