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.
Reversing climate apathy: Scientists have found that certain types of messaging break through the climate apathy that occurs when people are shown long-term impacts via charts and graphs. If presented the same information through a more binary choice, such as whether a local lake will continue to freeze, people are likely to respond more urgently to the crisis. The key is to highlight clear, concrete shifts rather than slow-moving trends. (Kate Yoder | Grist)
Americans losing interest in buying a car: Rising costs are pushing some people to reconsider car ownership and think about possible alternatives — from car sharing to transit and micromobility. Tariffs on cars and car parts manufactured outside the United States will exacerbate higher insurance rates and steeper prices for new and used cars. (Giulia Carbonaro | Newsweek)
Maui’s quick-build neighborhood: After wildfires destroyed most of the city of Lahaina in Hawaii, officials have been looking for ways to quickly house survivors whose homes would take years to rebuild. A solution came in the form of creating a new neighborhood from prefabricated housing on public lands. After 100 days of construction, 600 people were housed. After factoring in all costs — including homes, water and road infrastructure — the neighborhood was constructed for $400,000 per unit. (Adele Peters | Fast Company)
Florida’s housing market and climate impacts: Housing prices have gone up in Florida despite rising risks from natural disasters and increased insurance rates. Real estate agents and experts suggest that the market will respond gradually to the threat. Many buyers believe they’ll be gone before the worst happens, so they take the risk anyway. (Alex Harris | Miami Herald)
Why are skyscrapers so short?: New technology development often follows a typical trajectory of physical possibility, economic viability and finally regulatory constraints. Economic feasibility followed by regulations such as zoning laws and building codes keep skyscrapers short and rare in cities. Because of these restrictions, says Brian Potter, author of the newsletter “Construction Physics,” we see more underutilized land, higher housing costs and reduced economic productivity. (Brian Potter | Works in Progress)
Subaru’s exterior airbags in Japan: Subaru’s new Forrester model to be released in Japan will have exterior airbags to protect pedestrians and cyclists from directly hitting the windshield after an impact. Because of less stringent safety rules in the United States, the feature won’t be part of packages sold here. (Rain Noe | Core 77)
This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re listening in on a conversation hosted about the 2024 update to the California State Rail Plan. Adina Levin of Seamless Bay Area hosts Shannon Simonds Chief, Office of Rail Planning & Implementation at Caltrans; Eric Goldwyn of the Marron Institute of Urban Management at New York University; and Adriana Rizzo of Californians for Electric Rail in discussion.
Quote of the Week
“When one shops at a national chain instead of a local business, less than 40% of those dollars stay in the communities where they were spent, roughly half of what would be the case if the business were locally owned. Instead of the small-business owner using profits to stimulate the local economy, those dollars are corporatized and sent out into the caprices of the global winds of capital.”
— Coby Lefkowitz in Southern Urbanism discussing why main streets all look the same.