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This is the Strong Towns movement - for those passionate about the future of America's towns and neighborhoods. Our mission is to support a model of development that allows America's cities, towns and neighborhoods to become financially strong and resilient.
The areas subsequently redlined were not poor because of the ethnic groups living there, the ethnic groups that lived there were disproportionately poor and chose the most economical housing.
Is the sidewalk the store's property, or the city's? If the sidewalk is the city's, how can the store extend their awning and take the sidewalk for private use? Does the disrupted sidewalk make it more difficult for handicapped pedestrians to use? Do the extended curbs and other features around intersections make it more difficult for bicycles riders to navigate the intersections?
The city can provide an easement to a private entity, allowing them to use what would otherwise be public space for a narrow purpose. You would want to make sure that the remaining or replacement sidewalk is enough to accommodate people
13:05 maybe just maybe not giving luxury apartment developers 10 of millions of dollars in public funds? Maybe just maybe if we stopped giving public funds to luxury developments we’d have the money to build affordable housing people actually need?
12:39 no that’s not what people mean at all, it means we don’t need $2500 a month 1 bedrooms apartments in the suburbs of Ohio with onsite bars, pickleball courts and steam showers. We need basic no frills housing.
In Portland, Oregon, many schools have an adjacent “neighborhood greenway.” Those are supposedly quiet roads for bicycling, walking, rolling. Sadly, the traffic jams during the start and end of the school day make the whole area extremely unsafe and chaotic for anyone not in a car. Finding ways to have more parents pick up their kids without a car would make walking and biking the area around the school safer.
@@magnushultgrenhtc We already know a significant amount about what works. Even the video specifically notes that a truck blocking a clear view at an intersection is dangerous. The inclusion of a bike rack as a tactical urbanist strategy isn't a necessary experiment. It's merely a cheaper, temporary solution than a curb extension, and the video points that out too. This "common sense" logic of dabbling in lighter, quicker, cheaper that is espoused by placemaking ideologues is pure cope for the fact that all budgets are bound up in private capital, policing, militarism, and the traffic power structure (i.e. automobility). There isn't *any* proof that these tactical strategies ever get "scaled up and/or made permanent". At best, the tactical, strategy is allowed to persist as-is, as a temporary structure, meaning it is always subject to the possibility of removal when the subjectively regressive political power structure deems it a "hazard" when it's advantageous, or that it's no longer necessary.
What needs to be gotten across to everybody in small town America is that tactical urbanism IS freedom, it’s the lowest level common denominator doing good for the community. Sure, sometimes it means slowing cars down, but that’s how you make a street safe for kids and older people to walk on. Do you want to have to go through a planning commission and a migraine of red tape bureaucracy just to put a bench up at your bus stop? No. That’s not freedom, it’s regulations gone mad. We as a community CAN do the work of our community, there’s nothing stopping us from making our little towns better and brighter together.
In principle, yes, but practically every municipality is engaged in a campaign of securitization and hostile architecture, with regressive views dominating discourse, especially with regard to homelessness and the fantasy of the "criminal element". Benches, shelters etc. are more frequently abhorred as "places for the homeless to sleep" and "garbage attractors" (to say nothing of actual garbage receptacles) rather than seen as community assets. Tactical urbanism functions best and succeeds in appearing where strong community alliances already exist to demand and sustain them (take Seattle's Ballard Avenue, which was totally converted during relaxed COVID protocols using tactical urbanist principles). These ideas are good, but so little attention is paid to "tactically" handling regressive cultural forces, that it is difficult to reliably implement these ideas, much less transform the landscape of social regression and the "lack" of budget for more permanent urban interventions. Similar to combating NIMBYism, how we utilize tactical urbanism should be one piece to the puzzle of navigating and transforming the tendencies of regression in urban discourse and community building. Placemaking™️ offers some possibilities, but the critical missing piece to the puzzle is admitting the budget shortfalls are fake and the money exists, but it is bound up in the institutions of policing and the traffic power structure. The idea that "there isn't enough budget" for curb extensions, for example, only exists because the budgets of those institutions are bloated and actively contributing to unsafe environments, social regression and securitization. Tactical urbanism is a band aid, and sometimes we need bandages to cover our wounds, but these "lighter, quicker, cheaper" solutions need to be viewed merely as stop gaps, rather than ends unto themselves, in the process of the deeper, more transformative work of defunding the police and the traffic power structure.
In Hungary a joke political party, called the Two Tailed Dog Party (Kétfarkú Kutya Párt), led by a stand up comedian, is doing these things in a guerilla manner. Their campaigns and projects are awesome!
The underlying problem is poor distribution of resources, not a lack thereof. These are all great strategies, but let's also stop pretending like America doesn't have the resources to make small fixes like these. We could fund so much urban renewal if the federal government used its massive budget to actually took care of its own people
I think another benefit of this sort of tactical urbanism is that it allows you to test out ideas before committing to a permanent change. Good design is iterative, and a little trial and error can help you avoid making big investments that don't work out the way you hope they will.
I don't think it's as simple as "we can afford it, actually," because one of the reasons the US struggles to fund things is sprawl. We pay for old repairs with money from new developments, and it's an unsustainable cycle. We simply have too much pavement and other infrastructure because of sprawl, and that pavement doesn't lead to city revenue. We need to densify and concentrate toward population centers to make things affordable.
Sure, might be "combating" the "housing crisis" but are dramatically increasing the transport issues. ZERO public transit initiatives are being enacted. Causing more issues than are being solved.
The reality is that they are an asset that provides the service of shelter. Economics is the study of how value is traded and the incentive structures around value production. The base problem is land speculation and protectionism of building capacity though zoning codes. We need land value taxes to eliminate land specualtion and we need to loosen zoning codes to allow people to build more higher density housing.
Unfortunately my city grew along class and race lines, as many are, and that has not changed. So there are winners and losers every time no matter the other circumstances around housing. What has changed since '08, is the added burden of investors buying up housing and locking it up away from a possible homeowner.
I wonder, when people will comprehend the obvious: Some people are simply too dumb to drive. And they shouldn't. Yet, across the world, everybody can drive at least until they kill someone, and maybe then - just MAYBE - they get their drivers license revoked. In which case, they simply drive without one. Drastically increase penalties for bad/wrong driving, revoke licenses in case drivers keep violating the laws and mandatory driving fitness tests every 5 or so years.
The unstated purpose of municipalities adopting strict building codes is to drive up the cost of housing in order to keep out the riff-raff. They would much rather have half as many affluent citizens who pay more in taxes and use fewer fire and police services and are generally less difficult to deal with.
We have a few of these in my town and for the most part they're fine, but the one right near my house was placed off-center in the intersection to accommodate an existing sewer entrance. The side where it's closer to the corners also has a light/electrical pole right on the corner. I've seen multiple larger cars/trucks not be able to make left hand turns or go straight across the skinnier side without going up on the center circle or having to do a three-point turn to avoid the pole. Placement in the intersection is really critical for these things when dealing with an existing intersection.
I reckon development like this where you have private owners setting up additional dwellings on the one site turns a suburb into a shanty town of unorganised sprawl. I feel like a more humane way to do it is built larger buildings for more people that are purpose built to cater to them and the surrounding area and street scape. Rather than selling everyone the false idea that you have your own house (which will be tiny and on an awkward spot on a site shared by another house) on a piece of land that is surrounded by other sites doing the same thing. Just a sea of roofs. You may as well be sharing the walls and use the saved space for a more open street scape. That’s my 2 cents
government power draws in corrupt people, corrupt people prey on the weak (poor/those with a small network) and avoid the strong (wealthy/networked people). Corrupt people will always form a concentration is seats of power eventually, and unless you have a monarchy, you wont keep them out. Large part of why the founders and libertarians go on about small government, low regulations, and taxes all the time.
Have a look at the reality around say -- Rogers center in Toronto, and the Nova Scotia arena- right down the road. While there is parking - it is not a sea of parking - but mostly a tiny parking lot to the south - and under the stadium itself. The reality is - both of these function well - because they are directly adjacent to Union Station - where there is subway -bottom of loop - so both directions can be heavily used, a large hub of commuter rail and a street car loop - all in one building.
Why don't put the walkway behind the parked cars? That seems like a free buffer zone made from parked cars. Plus the the driving cars are closer to the road edge, which means lower speeds.
Y'know, there's this intersetion in my hometown where someone put four traffic cones in such a way that you Have to go around them at like, a very slow speed (if you want to go around, and not through) and this video made me thibk that maybe their aim was this very thing. The cones are not in a circle formation, but they have the same effect as a traffic circle. Pretty smart 🫡
We have these in my neighborhood in Richmond VA. I'm a fan of larger roundabouts but don't care for these. I prefer 4-way stops to a small circle. In our neighborhood. which is FAR denser than the one shown in this video, lack of building setbacks and parked cars limit visibility at the corners. So you often have to come to complete stops at these small circle intersections anyway so I'd rather just have the stop signs...
Planning is needed as essential infrastructure (ie. Hospitals and schools) are required to handle such influx in any area. If not no one has access to these essentials.... seems fantastical. Just me?
Those mini roundabouts can be made into planted bioswales (depressed planting areas designed to handle heavy rain overflow). Just incorporate curbcuts and then divert and harvest rainwater. Biodwales reduce downstream flooding, water pollution, lessen ripping up and expanding existing stormwater/sewage infrastructure and related costs and time, add beauty, reduce heat island effects, preserve paving, etc...
And give credit where credit is due. It was the Dems who saved the housing market after world war II. We got to stop this Reagan created corporate greed which morphed into Maga and their radical religious fundamentalism nobody wants.
