Concrete Fancy

The Most Pet-Friendly Cities in the U.S.

2018-01-23T12:06:00.000-08:00

Where does your city rank in pet-friendliness? Photo: Shutterstock

Every year, WalletHub compiles a list of the most pet-friendly cities in the United States. In 2017, they ranked three variables: pet budget, pet health and wellness, and outdoor pet-friendliness.

They evaluated those dimensions using 21 relevant metrics, each of which was graded on a 100-point scale, with a score of 100 representing the most favorable conditions. After they gathered those statistics, they determined each city’s weighted average across all metrics to calculate its total score.

For the pet budget metric, WalletHub used veterinary care costs, minimum pet-care provider rate per visit, and the cost of pet health insurance in that city. For pet health and wellness, they calculated 12 variables including veterinarians per capita, pet caretakers per capita, pet-friendliness of the rental market, animal shelters per capita, and the strength of animal protection laws in those cities. Finally, pet-friendliness was determined by weather, dog parks per capita, parklands as share of city area, walk score, pet-friendly trails per capita, and dog shows per capita.

Data used to create the rankings of 2017’s most pet-friendly cities were collected from the U.S. Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics, Yelp.com, Zillow, WalkScore.com, TripAdvisor, Pets Best Insurance Services, RentPath, Council for Community and Economic Research, Center for Neighborhood Technology, Sittercity, BringFido, InfoDog, Trust for Public Land, Animal Legal Defense Fund, Meetup, and research by WalletHub staff.

So, which cities of the 100 in WalletHub’s list are the most pet-friendly? Scottsdale, Arizona; Phoenix, Arizona; Tampa, Florida; San Diego, California, and Orlando, Florida are the top five in pet-friendliness. The least pet-friendly cities are Newark, New Jersey; Baltimore, Maryland; Honolulu, Hawaii; New York, New York; and Boston, Massachusetts.

Want to find out where your city lies? Go visit WalletHub’s website and see for yourself. You can also get feedback from experts about what to look for in a pet-friendly city, and find out which cities had the lowest and highest vet care costs, the most dog parks, and several other breakout categories.

Visiting Portland? Check Out These Hipster Galleries

2017-11-24T07:56:00.000-08:00

Photo by Zack Spear on Unsplash

Over the years, Portland has established an “interesting” reputation for itself. Ask any local, and they'll say the city can be summed up with these three things: amazing donuts, naked bike rides, and an unusually high number of strip clubs.

But nudity and confections aside, the city also has a thriving underground art scene. Sure, you could visit the Portland Art Museum, but there’s just one problem—large institutions like that are so… mainstream. If you really want to immerse yourself in the local culture, you’ll want to hit up these hipster galleries instead.

Williamson | Knight
916 NW Flanders St.
Portland, OR 97209

Tucked away in Portland’s Pearl District is Williamson | Knight, a small but charming gallery that showcases local artists. Currently on display is Holding a Fray by budding photographer Dru Donovan. After earning her BFA from the California College of the Arts and her MFA the Yale School of Art, Donovan relocated to Portland where she now currently resides.

Another reason to love Williamson | Knight? The gallery features artwork created by students at the nearby Pacific Northwest College of Art (PNCA). Talk about up-and-coming artists!

Ampersand
2916 NE Alberta Street, Suite B
Portland, OR 97211

Founded in 2008, this unusual gallery doubles as a fine art bookstore. In true unconventional fashion, Ampersand presents monthly exhibitions of contemporary pieces along with a curated selection of works created by unknown or outsider artists. Aficionados love Ampersand because it gives emerging artists a platform to stand on.

White Space
1439 NW Marshall St.
Portland, OR 97209

Located inside a 100-year-old building, this certainly isn’t your standard walk-through gallery. Fully equipped with working artist studios and a wine bar, at White Space, guests have the opportunity to sip merlot while they watch artists work in real time. This is the type of experience you just can’t get at any run-of-the-mill gallery or museum.

There’s so much more to Portland’s art scene than you might think if you’re not paying attention, and these galleries just prove it. Go underground for a taste of the real Portland.

What are your favorite art galleries in Portland? Sound off in the comments!

Hundreds of Cities Wooed Amazon In Hopes of Being “HQ2”

2017-10-25T11:29:00.000-07:00

One betting house says Atlanta is the odds-on favorite to be Amazon's
second headquarters. Photo: Shutterstock

Amazon says it received 238 proposals from cities and regions that want to be the home of the company’s second headquarters.

Now that Amazon has succeeded in turning Seattle into a company town, making a big contribution to pricing many residents out of the rental and home buying market, and straining the city’s infrastructure almost to the breaking point, the behemoth is setting its sights on doing the same thing to another city.

Amazon says its second headquarters, also known as HQ2, will be a full equal to its Seattle location. The company is going to announce its decision some time in 2018.

Cities, for their part, tried to woo the company with massive tax breaks and grants—which Amazon had made clear would be a big deciding factor on its HQ2 location.

Amazon said it prefers cities with a population of 1 million or more. But some experts say it may need an even larger metropolitan area, with a big labor market and better-educated workers.

According to CBS news, research by Berkeley economist Enrico Moretti shows that companies like Amazon create a “clustering effect,” in which up to five other local jobs are created for each worker employed by the company. Since Amazon intends to hire 50,000 people in HQ2, Moretti estimates that the new site could create up to 300,000 jobs over two decades.

So, which city will attract Amazon’s HQ2? One betting house says it’s going to be Atlanta. Popular betting site Paddy Power shows Atlanta as the front runner, with 2:1 odds that the company will locate its second headquarters there.

Of the 13 cities with top odds, four are in Canada: Toronto (7:1), Vancouver (66:1), Ottawa (80:1), and Halifax (100:1). Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau recently sent a letter to Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos in an effort to bring Amazon to Canada.

Sure, it may not seem like a great idea to place any significance on novelty wagers on betting sites, a lot of economists and investors take these “prediction markets” seriously because “crowdsourcing” is an effective way to find accurate information. This is especially true when people have invested in the outcome by making wagers.

However, some find it odd that potential front-runners Denver and Chicago aren’t in Paddy Power’s list, which may suggest that the site’s odds-makers may be premature in their guesses.

Wherever Amazon’s HQ2 lands, some worry that the tax breaks the company demands will deprive states and regions of much-needed revenue to compensate for the demands on the area’s infrastructure and schools. And more than a few Seattleites are wondering if Amazon is actually thinking of pulling out of the city altogether if it can find cheaper labor elsewhere.

Post-Katrina Greenery Reflects Social Demographics More Than Hurricane Impact

2017-09-25T12:22:00.002-07:00

Abandoned lots and buildings are more indicative of a public policy failure
than a romantic vision of nature reclaiming land, according to
new research. Photo: Shutterstock

There’s a long-standing trend to refer to the abandonment of buildings and subsequent greenery overgrowth in post-Katrina New Orleans as “nature reclaiming civilization.” But the truth is that this overgrowth is more reflective of a public policy failure than it is of any romantic visions, according to a paper published in the journal Ecosphere.

“Observers can be taken in by the post-apocalyptic image that some flood-damaged neighborhoods present over a decade after Katrina. It stimulates the imagination. But local people see it as a failure of public policy and a social problem,” said study lead author Joshua Lewis, a research professor at Tulane University. “For a community that has had thousands of people come back and struggle to rebuild, to reopen schools and churches, it’s frustrating to see their neighborhoods portrayed as disintegrating or losing ground to nature.”

The researchers studied plant life across New Orleans after Katrina. They found that wealth, race, housing recovery, and land abandonment predicted vegetation patterns better than the degree of intensity of flooding and wind during Katrina.

Although city and state agencies maintain some abandoned lots and keep them as lawns, other lots have grown “thickets of mostly non-native, opportunistic, or invasive species.”

These unplanned green spaces, as the researchers call them, do have some benefits: they absorb stormwater and provide places for songbirds to nest, for example. However, they also provide habitat for disease-carrying mosquitoes and rats. They can even depress redevelopment and keep neighborhoods from being seen as good spots for investment or residence.

“New Orleans is a pretty heavily forested city, but the parks and managed green spaces aren’t evenly distributed. The [low-income] neighborhoods we’re talking about had relatively low forest cover before Katrina,” Lewis said. “In hurricane-hit neighborhoods, we now have green space, but it’s space that causes more problems than benefits for the people who live there.”

The study’s authors noted a “striking contrast” between unmanaged plants filling abandoned lots in the Lower 9th Ward and the cultivated landscape of wealthy St. Bernard Parish. Hurricane-resilient native trees, lawns, and ornamental shrubs, they pointed out, are concentrated in wealthier, predominantly white, neighborhoods.

Another problem is that public agencies may not have permission to enter privately owned abandoned lots in poorer neighborhoods and remove the overgrowth.

On the bright side, Lewis thinks there are ways to transform some neglected lots into stormwater parks, making use of the “volunteer” plants to improve neighborhoods. But, naturally, the political will has to exist in order for that to happen. Residents of neighborhoods like the Lower 9th Ward are skeptical about any plans that are being discussed, because they have seen green infrastructure projects unfinished, and sometimes even used to displace residents and gentrify neighborhoods.

“Urban ecosystems are embedded in sociopolitical dynamics that shape the current conditions, and will continue to do so going forward,” Lewis said.

Artspan Brings Art to San Francisco’s Residents

2017-08-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

ArtSpan's space. Photo by Diane Chehab

ArtSpan is a 20-year-old organization whose aim is to promote art to the San Francisco public and support local artists, both emerging and established. Their offices are located in the SOMarts Cultural Center.

Their belief lies “in the power of art to enrich lives.” It’s especially relevant in the tech capital of the United States, where many people are engaged in creating the next frontier in technology or the next great app. Culture and art are alive and well in San Francisco, which boasts SFMoMA and the de Young Museum, among other art institutions.

ArtSpan is a not-for-profit organization, and they use several tactics to promote art and those who create it.

Their best-known program is the San Francisco Open Studios, in existence for forty-one years and the oldest program of its kind in the country. It lasts from mid-October till mid-November. Participating artists invite those interested into their homes and/or studios. Visitors can experience where and how art is produced and ask questions of the artists. ArtSpan provides a map to help navigate the locations and inaugurates the event with Art Launch, “a public grand opening welcoming 500 attendees into the SOMArts exhibition space.”

Other programs include Youth Open Studios (since 2014), professional development workshops for artists, art mixers for artists to network with each other, “Art Curious” panel discussions and tours, “Art-in-Neighborhoods” connecting communities to artists and “activating” empty spaces, storefronts with art and including public outreach, studio residencies, and fundraisers such as an annual gala and an auction. ArtSpan also advocates for displaced artists who may have lost their workspace due to the overheated Bay Area real estate market.

Dedicated committees assist to ensure the success of the various programs, as well as for marketing efforts. The Open Studios will cover five weekends in 2017, starting October 14 and running through November 12.

In Baltimore, Poor Neighborhoods Have More Mosquitoes

2017-07-21T12:32:00.001-07:00

Tiger mosquitoes can be found in higher numbers in the poorest neighborhoods
of Baltimore, and probably in other cities as well. Photo: Shutterstock

A new study shows that in Baltimore, neighborhoods with the highest number of abandoned buildings and lots have the highest number of tiger mosquitoes. These abandoned areas are much more commonly found in poor neighborhoods, and the preponderance of mosquitoes could leave low-income Baltimoreans at higher risk for mosquito-borne diseases such as Zika.

The tiger mosquito arrived in the U.S. in the 1980s. They have spread through the South, and then the Northeast, and they seem to thrive in cities. While native mosquitoes feed during the night, tiger mosquitoes feed during the day.

“Tiger mosquitoes are highly tolerant and can reproduce in very small pools of water; a cap of water will suffice,” said study lead author Eliza Little, a doctoral candidate at Columbia University. “They are known to transmit diseases such as dengue and chikungunya, with documented cases in Asia and Europe. They also have the potential to spread Zika.”

The research team monitored mosquito activity in five neighborhoods in west Baltimore. The sites they studied were in low-, middle-, and high-income neighborhoods. Over the three years they conducted their research, they conducted block-scale surveillance of mosquito breeding habitats three times during each season. Every three weeks from May through September, adult mosquitoes were also sampled.

More mosquitoes were found in lower socioeconomic areas because abandoned buildings and vacant lots provide more breeding sites. While rain-filled garbage and blighted properties provide the mosquitoes what they need, in higher-income areas, mosquitoes are actually supported by residents who irrigate their lawns and water their plants in the summer.

“In a city like Baltimore, hot, dry conditions should cause mosquito populations to decline. Instead, in higher income neighborhoods, residents water their yards and enable mosquito populations to survive,” said Shannon LaDeau, a disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and senior author of the paper. “That said, overall, our surveys found much larger mosquito populations in lower income neighborhoods.”

Little says that the study shows that mosquito control and public education are the greatest tools to keep disease-transmitting insects at bay.

“This summer, if you want to reduce mosquito numbers, one of the best things you can do is reduce water-holding containers in your community. After a rainfall, do a quick survey of your yard or neighborhood and address sites where water pools. Planters, clogged gutters, neglected pet dishes and bird baths, and trash all provide great tiger mosquito breeding grounds,” LaDeau advised.

We can certainly guess that if this data holds true across the board and mosquito populations are higher in low-income neighborhoods in cities around the globe, there is a definite public health hazard to be addressed.

Maintaining Vacant Lots Can Reduce Crime Rates

2017-06-14T07:00:00.000-07:00

When vacant lots like this are cleaned up and maintained, crime rates
tend to go down. Photo: Shutterstock

Vacant lots are a staple of urban and suburban regions, but they appear disproportionately in some cities, like Flint, Michigan. Flint has a population of about 100,000, which is half of what it was in the 1960s. But as the auto industry retooled and pulled out, the city started to shrink. Flint lost 41 percent of its jobs, and now over 42 percent of the property there is vacant, or publicly owned. With all those vacant lots comes crime, apparently, as the city’s crime rates increased while the police department shrank.

But 13 years ago, Genesee County, where Flint is located, started a Clean and Green program to clean up and maintain some of those lots, initially to help improve the look for potential investors or buyers, but also to improve the overall morale of communities. Green spaces, as well as things like gardening, can do a lot to improve a community.

But there was an unexpected benefit as well. According to a new study from Michigan State University, well-kept vacant lots seem to reduce crime rates in the neighborhoods that feature them.

“Generally speaking, I found that greening was more prevalent where violent crime, property crime, and victimless crime were going down,” said study lead author Richard Sadler.

This study is the first to show an actual causal link, but the idea that well-kept vacant lots reduce crime has long been supported by correlation. The Genesee County Land Bank, which organized the Clean and Green program, wasn’t surprised by these findings, as they’ve “always had a sense that maintaining these properties helps reduce crime and the perception of crime.”

The researchers suggest that the perception that neighbors are paying attention, implied by maintaining vacant lots, can do a lot to prevent crime. It gives the impression that criminal activity will be noticed and reported.

Programs like Clean and Green are also an affordable, sustainable way for places like Flint to address some of their problems without burdening their already strained budgets.

“It’s people looking out for their own neighborhoods,” said Sadler. “If you know somebody’s watching, you’re not going to go out and vandalize something. It’s the overall change in perception created by cleaning up blighted property.”

Sea Level Rise Will Impact Inland Cities As Well

2017-05-17T07:00:00.000-07:00

Cities like Atlanta need to plan for the possibility that they will be the
destination for "climate refugees" coming from inundated coastal cities.
Photo: Shutterstock

Sea levels are expected to rise over the century, and that’s something that many of us have been talking about for years. Studies have been performed and plans have been concocted to figure out how to best address the problem, which has long been seen as one of coastal areas. But one problem hasn’t been addressed until now: when seas rise and cities flood, where will the people living in those cities go?

The answer, according to a study from the University of Georgia, is inland.

“We typically think about sea level rise as a coastal issue, but if people are forced to move because their houses become inundated, the migration could affect many landlocked communities as well,” said study lead author Matthew Hauer.

As many as 13.1 million people could be displaced by rising sea levels, in the United States alone, and move inland towards Atlanta, Houston, Phoenix, and other landlocked cities. Not surprisingly, many of the most likely destinations are also cities that are already struggling with water maintenance or expansion. Incoming migrants, whether temporary or permanent, can strain existing infrastructures, making their lives even harder.

“Some of the anticipated landlocked destinations, such as Las Vegas, Atlanta, and Riverside, California, already struggle with water management or growth management challenges,” Hauer said. “Incorporating accommodation strategies in strategic long-range planning could help alleviate the potential future intensification of these challenges.”

While planning for sea level rise among coastal cities is an excellent idea, and an increasingly necessary one, that planning has to extend beyond the boundaries of places like New York City, and to the areas to which people are likely to relocate in extreme situations. Sea level is something that we can measure, and predict to some degree, and so it’s unlikely that we will simply wake up one morning and find San Francisco underwater, but as sea levels rise, hurricanes and other coastal storms pose significantly higher risks.

Globally, a huge number of people live in cities and smaller communities along the world’s coastlines, and when events like Hurricane Katrina or Super-typhoon Hayyan hit in other cities, people are going to need somewhere to go, and they’re going to head inland. Planners in those landlocked cities need to consider that they too will be impacted by rising sea levels.

Urban Green Spaces Are Good for Seniors’ Mental Health

2017-04-20T07:00:00.000-07:00

Green spaces are good for the mental health of seniors, and for
urban residents in general. Photo: Shutterstock

Green spaces in cities have been linked to a variety of health benefits for urban residents, and now a study from the Universities of York and Edinburgh have added to that list.

Using electroencephalography (EEG), self-reporting, and interviews with subjects, they have determined that walking between built and green spaces triggers changes in levels of excitement, engagement and frustration in the brain.

The subjects of the study were all over the age of 65, an increasingly large population which will be putting additional strain on national health systems across the world. The researchers have argued that green spaces can be a low-cost way to help maintain an even improve the health of older people, though the value could likely extend to people of all ages as well. Especially as budgets tighten and green spaces come under threat, this study adds yet more support to keeping those spaces around.

“We found that older participants experienced beneficial effects of green space whilst walking between busy built urban environments and urban green space environments,” the researchers wrote. “Indeed, this work is the first to be published in a series of papers understanding the impact of green and urban spaces on brain activity in older adults.”

Urban green space has a role to play in contributing to a supportive city environment, the researchers wrote, and this study shows empirical evidence of benefits to individuals, which might be easier to argue than the more broad and abstract benefits of green spaces.

The world’s population is increasingly urban and keeping that population healthy and happy is of significant importance, and cities themselves can help with that. Incorporating green spaces into our cities, as well as preserving those we already have, can help to make those cities better places to live, which will in turn make the people living there less likely to leave.

“These findings—and others from the same project which show how important places are for our personal and cultural memories, and for enabling us to stay connected socially—have implications for the way we design for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities so that going outdoors in younger years becomes a lifelong passion for getting out and about,” wrote Dr. Sara Tilley of the University of Edinburgh, one of the researchers.

Indian Low-Cost Canteens Could Help Urban Poor

2017-04-18T07:30:00.000-07:00

Millions of people flock to India's cities hoping for a better life.
Unfortunately, what many of them find is grinding poverty.
Photo: kaetana / Shutterstock.com

The government in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India, and the most populous division of a country in the world, is looking into a program to provide low-cost canteens to feed the urban poor of Kanur and other cities. As people continue to migrate to cities in search of work and a better life, many cities find themselves straining under the weight of all those residents. This is especially true in India, where urban populations seem to be larger than official records show, and many people end up working for less money than they need.

The canteens would be an excellent idea, provided they can be pulled off. Charging very low prices for breakfasts and lunches (3 and 5 rupees respectively, which is 5 to 8 cents American), the canteens could help feed a lot of people who are otherwise struggling to feed themselves and their families.

Uttar Pradesh isn’t the only place this is happening. In Punjab, the government is doing the same thing, but will charge 13 rupees (about 20 cents) for meals that will be served in its state canteens.

Such low prices might be hard to maintain, however, so the success of the project, if it comes to fruition, will be important to watch.

But urban poverty, which in India might be outstripping rural poverty, is a problem in many parts of the world, and is certainly one which requires attention, and creative problem-solving to address. India is not the United States, of course, so its solutions might not work here, and something so blatantly socialist would be difficult to implement in the U.S., unless a nonprofit handled it.

However, subsidized or charity canteens like that, built on charging the lowest price possible in order to cover costs, could go a long way, even in the United States. Starvation and malnutrition are not just problems of the developing world anymore, nor have they ever been. Finding ways to better serve urban residents is going to require the acknowledgement of such issues and developing ways to deal with them.

Nutrient Pollution Sourced to Urban Waters

2017-04-13T07:30:00.000-07:00

Nutrient pollution has been affecting many of the nation's
rivers, including the Mississippi. Photo: Shutterstock

Nutrient pollution refers to an excess of nitrogen and phosphorus in water and air, which can cause excess algae as well as hampering air quality. These problems are caused largely by urban environments, according to a study from the University of Minnesota.

In the Minneapolis-St. Paul urban area, households are the most significant contributors to this kind of pollution, which empty into seven sub-watersheds of the Mississippi River.

Nitrogen comes from household fertilizer, and contributed more than 10 times as such as golf courses and other non-residential fertilizer use. Pet waste is the leading source of phosphorus. Both end up being washed into storm drains and then into the watershed. Those storm drains have been necessary to prevent flooding in urban areas, but they are also proving dangerous.

“Urban waters—lakes, streams, rivers, coastal waters—continue to be impaired by nutrient pollution, especially phosphorus, despite long-running efforts to clean them up,” said Sarah Hobbie, leader of the research team. “Not only is this a concern for water resource managers tasked with cleaning up urban pollution, but also urban downstream residents who depend on clean water for drinking water, recreation, and aesthetic value.”

While there is generally not enough room in dense urban areas for features that capture nutrients, like rain gardens and ponds, there may be alternative solutions to consider. If homeowners reduce their use of nitrogen fertilizer, and dog owners clean up after their pets, that would do a lot to prevent these chemicals from getting into streets and subsequently storm drains. Controlling erosion and sweeping streets more often could also help. These are probably just going to be stopgap measures, though, and addressing this issue in a truly effective way will almost certainly require redesigns of existing drainage systems.

In the meantime, as cities expand and restructure, the problems of nutrient pollution need to be addressed. With new construction, this can be taken into consideration when planning roads, sewage, and drainage systems. Investing in facilities to capture nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorus should be prioritized. Rain gardens and ponds could improve the quality of life in a neighborhood in more obvious ways, so it would be a good idea to include them in new development. However those funds are secured, though, such features need to be included in new development and retrofitted into existing areas in order to control nutrient pollution.

Moscow To Demolish 10 Percent of City’s Housing

2017-04-11T08:00:00.000-07:00

Moscow's "Khruschchevka" can be seen in the foreground, while
its new tower blocks loom over them. Photo: Shutterstock

Moscow is about to embark on one of the largest urban resettlement programs in history, as about 1.5 million residents living in Soviet-era housing blocks could see their buildings destroyed.

The buildings, known as Khrushchevka, are named for Nikita Khrushchev, who took over after Stalin’s death and steered the Soviet Union in a very different direction, at least as far as construction was concerned. The buildings were designed to give families their own flats, as many had been living in communal housing under Stalin which sometimes left 30 people to an apartment.

But the construction that started in the late 1950s continued up to the end of the Soviet Union, and spread throughout Communist Europe. Now, the mayor of Moscow and Russian President Vladimir Putin claim that these buildings are too old to function and too expensive to renovate, despite renovations of similar buildings in Germany and other parts of Europe.

So now these buildings, which make up as much as 10 percent of Moscow’s housing stock, will be torn down in a program estimated at 300 billion rubles ($53.3 million), though opponents argue it will like be closer to 3 trillion ($53.3 billion).

Many people are also concerned that they will be resettled far from their current homes, Moscow is a massive city, and away from their family, friends, and jobs. Such things have been common in large-scale resettlement programs like this, so it’s a pretty reasonable fear.

There is also a sense that community will be lost. Khrushchevkas are typically about five stories tall and were built in neighborhoods that emphasized green space. This led to small, relatively close-knit neighborhoods. However, new construction in Moscow has focused on high-rise buildings, and that construction isn’t known for being of the highest quality.

Activists are concerned that the program is more about money than about renovating the city’s housing stock, as developers and the city stand to make large profits from the construction of new tower blocks. They also worry about how the increase in housing density—the tower blocks are often up to 25 stories tall—will affect Moscow’s already-legendary traffic congestion and decrease the personable nature of the city’s current neighborhoods.

Urban Planning Shouldn’t Be Discarded

2017-04-06T08:00:00.000-07:00

Urban planning is sometimes left out of how cities are
designed, to the detriment of the people who live there.
Photo: Shutterstock

Urban planning developed to try and make urban spaces more livable. As cities grew without rhyme or reason, they often became more industrial than residential, and housing and health crises were frequent. While urban planning has solved some of these issues, it has seemingly caused other problems as well. For this reason, urban planning has gotten something of a bad rap and is, in places like Australia and New Zealand, sometimes being left out of decisions on urban policy.

But if urban planning has had faults, it isn’t because planning is at its core a bad idea. There are plenty of factors that can result in urban and suburban environments that are subpar despite being planned.

Take the reliance on cars in so many places. As the cultural emphasis on personal car ownership ramped up in the middle of the 20th Century, planners had to take traffic issues into consideration, which resulted in a lot of sprawling cities where people need cars. Auckland, New Zealand, for example, is designed so that residents have little choice but to drive, and are unsafe for seniors and children to navigate on foot. But cities like Hong Kong, which didn’t have the same automotive emphasis, were planned with mass transit in mind, so getting around without a car is much easier.

In the long run, urban planning works best when citizens are involved. Informed citizens are crucial to the planning process. Unfortunately, many people view the review of local regulations on planning, infrastructure, and environmental quality as excruciatingly dull. But the general public needs to realize that urban planning shapes their everyday lives—where they can afford to live, how easy or painful their daily commute is, and the potential for air pollution to make them ill and shorten their lives. If they begin to see that they will be affected by urban planning decisions, perhaps more members of the general population will get involved.

Cities and cultures change over time, so planning has to change as well. While no plan is assured to work forever, expecting it to do so is simply absurd. As we continue to move toward cities that de-emphasize car ownership, we need to take that into account. We need to take changing environmental concerns into account as well, and urban planning as a discipline is inclined to do exactly that.

Urban planning can’t predict how people’s attitudes and needs will change, but it can develop plans based on current and projected needs. Failing to use urban planning isn’t likely to solve many problems, but it will almost certainly create more.

Some Google Street View Cars Are Scanning for Underground Methane Leaks

2017-04-04T08:00:00.000-07:00

A Google Street View car in Phoenix, Arizona. This car
is not equipped with methane leak monitoring
equipment. Photo: jessicakirsh / Shutterstock.com

Methane is a greenhouse gas with up to 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide. It’s also a major component in natural gas, so it gets piped all around the world. But those pipes can, and often do, leak methane, which makes its way into the atmosphere. Researchers estimate that, by fixing just the top 8 percent of such leaks by size, methane emissions could be cut by as much as 30 percent.

With that in mind, researchers at Colorado State University are working on systems to detect those leaks using Google Street View mapping cars.

“This is a huge challenge that almost nobody has been thinking about. Now we’re finding out just how widespread these leaks are,” said research leader Joe von Fischer of CSU. “Utilities and regulators didn’t have the data to focus their efforts. That’s where we come in. Our goal is to make it faster, cheaper, and easier to find and measure methane leaks from natural gas lines to help accelerate crucial repairs.”

Since the Street View mapping cars are already driving around cities in order to help Google provide better mapping services, they are well suited to being retrofitted to map potential methane leaks. Using infrared lasers, the researchers can gather information about underground methane leaks, while also distinguishing between those and false positives provided by other sources.

At this time, four Google Street View cars are carrying the CSU methane analyzers. The drivers are instructed to drive all the roads in a predetermined area to capture leak data, which is then downloaded, analyzed, and uploaded to a public website hosted by the Environmental Defense Fund.

So far, the methane analyzers have provided leak maps of Boston; Burlington, Vermont; Chicago; Dallas; Indianapolis; Jacksonville; Los Angeles; Mesa, Arizona; Pittsburgh; Staten Island, New York; and Syracuse, New York.

The team has found that cities with old, corrosion-prone distribution lines—Boston, Staten Island, and Syracuse—had leaks that release 25 times more methane per kilometer of road than the distribution lines in younger cities.

This isn’t really a surprise, but it does help to drive home the need for updated infrastructure in such cities. The project has the potential to change the way scientists and city officials think about methane leaks and infrastructure overall and provide those individuals with the tools to fix or improve them both.

Examining the Urban-Rural Divide

2017-03-30T08:00:00.000-07:00

American flags hang on houses in a small town.
Photo: Shutterstock

We often talk about the divide between urban and rural areas, but exactly what that divide is often goes without being analyzed. But now, US News has compiled six charts that explain the urban-rural divide and accompanied those by some analysis from experts in the field. Yes, there are philosophical and political ideals that we tend to assume of these different populations, but even when they are accurate, they are based in something. Take the tendency for rural voters to turn out for Trump in 2016, and their understanding that things aren’t getting better for them despite the end of the recession.

That’s because, for rural Americans, the recession isn’t really over. Rural areas have higher poverty levels and slower job growth rates than urban regions do. Jobs left rural areas just as they did urban ones, but they haven’t gone back to rural areas in anything resembling the number of jobs that returned to urban regions.

“In these data are shuttered coal mines on the edges of rural towns and boarded-up gas stations on rural main streets. In these data are the angers, fears, and frustrations of much of rural America,” writes Steven Beda, an instructor of history at the University of Oregon.

On top of this, rural areas have higher rates of disability, generally, than do urban areas, but this varies around the country, from 15 percent in the Great Plains to 21 percent in parts of the South. Rural areas do have more entrepreneurs, though, and they tend to be slightly more successful. This is truer of smaller population areas, likely because the jobs aren’t there, and they aren’t nearby in a city that's an easy commute away. Therefore, people find ways to start new businesses and, perhaps due to more conservative practices, since there’s less to fall back on, they tend to survive the first five years at a higher rate than urban entrepreneurs.

None of this is to say that urban areas are inherently better than rural ones or that everyone should move to a city. That might help some people, but there are many factors that might prevent that, and frankly, if these people felt that they could improve their lives by moving to the city, they probably would. What this data does tell us, however, is that we need to take steps to help rural areas, perhaps even by looking to urban solutions for similar problems.

Red-Light Cameras Improve Safety

2017-03-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

Red-light cameras contribute to safety. Photo: Shutterstock

Chicago’s red-light cameras are improving safety on the city’s roads, according to a new study on the subject. While other studies have shown that red-light cameras do improve safety, this study has some concrete data to share, and some surprising data too.

The concept behind red-light cameras is that they capture traffic violations and allow the city to issue tickets to those violators. As such, people begin to drive more carefully and avoid running red lights so they don’t get tickets. The result is fewer collisions.

In Chicago, the cameras have reduced injury-producing crashes by 10 percent, with angle and turn crashes, which are more dangerous and costly, dropping by 14 percent. Rear-end collisions are up 14 percent, though.

The surprising finding in the study is that having cameras in some intersections is actually making other, camera-free intersections less dangerous as well. It seems as though knowing that some intersections are watched is making people drive more carefully overall. The benefits of such programs are obvious.

The researchers behind the study even have some suggestions for how cities can best incorporate red-light camera programs.

First, crash data should be regularly reviewed, and cameras moved to different intersections if they could be of more value elsewhere. Moving cameras to high-collision intersections could spread the benefit to those and surrounding intersections, while those where people are driving more safely should continue to benefit.

The researchers also point out that issuing tickets based on mere fractions of a second after a light change can be problematic. Taking pictures so quickly can trap law-abiding citizens who were in the intersection as the light changed, which shouldn’t penalize them.

Finally, the researchers made suggestions for public acceptance of such programs: by emphasizing the safety benefits of red-light camera programs, cities can help to offset concerns that they are there simply to enforce traffic laws.

Michigan Tries to Address Its Food Desert Problem

2017-03-23T08:00:00.000-07:00

Food deserts lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables,
and other healthy foods. Photo: Shutterstock

Food deserts are a serious issue in many urban landscapes, especially in older cities that have grown haphazardly. The United States Department of Agriculture defines a food desert as a part of the country lacking fresh fruit, vegetables, and other healthful whole foods, usually found in impoverished areas. This is largely due to a lack of grocery stores, farmers’ markets, and healthy food providers. The USDA also says that about 23.5 million Americans—mostly poor and many African-American—live in food deserts, and 6.5 million of those are children.

Food deserts also have high levels of obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease because most residents buy their food from convenience stores that sell processed foods or from fast-food restaurants.

Michigan knows a thing or two about food deserts, having them in a number of urban locales, like Detroit and Flint, but in many smaller communities as well.

In fact, Detroit was recently voted America’s seventh worst food desert, with more than 550,000 residents living in areas defined as food deserts. For most Detroiters, a grocery store is twice as far away as a fast food restaurant. Detroit also has one of America’s highest obesity rates, with 70 percent being classified as overweight or obese.

With that in mind, state lawmakers are considering a bill that would allocate 5 percent of the Michigan Strategic Fund to provide incentives to build grocery stores in downtowns and commercial corridors. There are a number of food deserts in the state that have seen other economic incentives, but so far grocery stores have still been thin on the ground.

Access to fresh food hasn’t been on the radar as much as the more obvious issues of lowering unemployment and increasing tax revenues by bringing in new businesses. However, proper urban development and management has to take into consideration the needs of all of a city’s population, including the poor. Forgetting about any of the needs of city residents can have a negative impact on the quality of life in cities.

The Crop Box: An Innovation In Urban Agriculture

2017-03-21T08:00:00.000-07:00

Urban farming could help to bring fresh food to "food deserts"
inside cities. The Crop Box could be part of that
effort. Photo: Shutterstock

Urban agriculture is a growing trend in cities around the world, though it runs into several hurdles. For one, many cities don’t quite know how to deal with it, from a zoning point of view, so urban farms can be hard to get started. But there is also the issue of space, as growing food tends to take up a lot of it.

Successful urban farms find ways around this by making use of existing space in the most efficient ways that they can. That has driven some interesting innovations, from using reclaimed objects like shipping containers and bathtubs, to integrating vertical and soil-less methods.

The Crop Box, illustrated at Sweet Peas Urban Gardens in the Raleigh/Durham area of North Carolina, is one such example. The Crop Box is a vertical farming experiment that uses hydroponics to cut down on resources, and LED lights, which are, in the long run, cheaper and greener than fluorescents. The entire Crop Box is built inside of a shipping container—and shipping containers are easy enough to find in and around port cities. While the whole thing costs about $75,000 to put together, it paid for itself pretty quickly, as Sweet Peas sells to a variety of customers in the area.

Innovations like this can be a great boon for urban spaces, especially in “food deserts,” areas that lack access to fresh foods. Greater access to healthy, fresh foods are good for the overall health of urban populations, and by growing such things locally, the costs are also reduced. Cooperatives and other such organizations have been working toward such goals for some time now, and as these trends grow in popularity, its time for more cities to not only embrace urban agriculture, but find ways to promote it. Helping residents locate and develop spaces for urban farming could pay for itself in any number of ways.

Dubai Prepares for Self-Driving Hover-Taxis

2017-03-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

Dubai will soon be home to one-person hover-taxis
if development continues as planned. Photo:
Rastislav Sedlak SK / Shutterstock.com

Dubai is a huge, growing city that brought in 14.9 million visitors in 2016. Added to the city’s population of just over 2.7 million, that makes for a lot of people getting around—or trying to. In order to ease the city’s congestion, the city is working toward making one quarter of its traffic autonomous by 2030. That’s a tall order, but they’ve got some interesting ideas in the mix.

Although the city recently teamed up with Hyperloop One, from the United States, in order to build a link to the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi, which will function at an almost-supersonic speed, the really interesting thing in the works is the EHang 184: an autonomous, flying drone which can carry a single human passenger. Flying cars, of a sort, are finally becoming a reality.

“The autonomous aerial vehicle exhibited at the World Government Summit is not just a model,” Dubai transit authority head Mattar al-Tayer said recently. “We have already experimented [with] the vehicle in a flight in [the] Dubai Sky.”

The city hopes to have the vehicles in operation by July of 2017, and have already tested them in the air over the city. Holding one passenger, the Chinese-built EHang 184 can fly up to 100 kilometers per hour (60 mph) at altitudes of up to 300 meters (1,000 feet), and can handle up to a 30-minute flight. It takes about two hours to recharge the battery that powers its eight rotors.

This is a new direction for drones, which are coming to see more and more use in cities as municipalities find various uses for the small aerial vehicles. Such vehicles could end up becoming a common sight in some cities, although different municipalities are going to have different takes on whether or not they are safe. Making them autonomous will hopefully allow cities to keep down aerial traffic, lest they end up with traffic jams in the sky. Whether or not they will be useful in clearing up congestion, or just become a toy for the wealthy, remains to be seen.

Researchers Debate the Merits of Compact Development

2017-03-14T08:00:00.000-07:00

Crowded compact urban development in Hong Kong.
Photo: Shutterstock

In the constant struggle to reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT) in cities, there are a lot of different tools that planners can use or might think about. A prominent one has long been the concept of compact development, which relies on keeping cities compact enough that people don’t need to drive. It focuses on the “5Ds,” namely “density, diversity, design, destination accessibility, and distance to transit,” and has been much discussed over the last 20 years.

A new study by Mark R, Stevens of the University of British Columbia, maintains that compact development doesn’t have much of an impact.

In his article, “Does Compact Development Make People Drive Less?” in the Journal of the American Planning Association (Vol. 83, No. 1), Stevens argues that, while it can help to reduce VMT, it isn’t able to do so significantly.

He concludes that planners “should probably not assume that compact development will be very effective” in achieving the goal of reducing driving. “At minimum, planners and municipal decision makers should not rely on compact development as their only strategy for reducing VMT unless their goals for reduced driving are very modest and can be clearly achieved at a low cost.”

There are a number of scholars who disagree with Stevens and maintain that compact development is more valuable than he argues, or even that his conclusions are outdated.

For example, Susan Handy, a professor at the University of California, Davis, says that while compact development cannot reduce driving very much on its own, it’s impossible to reduce driving without it. Compact development can make it possible to drive less and make people want to drive less because of access to public transit and other factors.

Such is the nature of academia, where experts can, and should, weigh in on each other’s work in order to improve the entire field. But that can make it hard for people outside of academia to follow along.

It might help if studies like Stevens’ were more readily accessible to planners, regardless of what they argue, so that planners can keep up with the debates and try to glean something directly useful from them.

Making research, and the insights that come from it, more readily available to planners is necessary if we’re going to continue moving our cities into he 21st century, and make them vibrant, sustainable places for growing populations to live.

Read the full article online: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01944363.2016.1240044

Brake and Tire Dust Pose a Health Threat

2017-03-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

Photo: Shutterstock

Scientists from the Georgia Institute of Technology have discovered another reason why cities need to reduce the number of cars on the road: brake and tire dust.

The level of particulates from these forms of dust was worse above highways, but those particulates could still be found 420 meters away.

While emissions from tailpipes are declining, this isn’t the only kind of pollution made by cars. Metals emitted by brakes and other systems, enter the air as particles, which can react with sulfate-rich particles in the atmosphere to create soluble metals.

The researchers noticed that toxicity of those particulates increased when they contained more soluble metals, and those metals combined with highly acidic sulfate.

“That’s the smoking gun,” said study co-author Athansios Nenes. “The sulfate essentially dissolves those metals; when you breathe in those particles, the metals could be absorbed directly into the blood stream and cause problems throughout the body. For the first time, a mechanism emerges to explain why small amounts of acidic sulfate can adversely affect health.”

Cars are not the only ways in which such metal particles can enter the atmosphere, as incinerators and other combustion sources create them as well.

The good news is that there is less sulfur dioxide in the atmosphere now than there was 15 years ago, but whether that remains the case is still up in the air, so to speak. It will be up to states and municipalities to find ways to reduce the creation of these metal particles, as well reducing emissions of sulfur dioxide.

Cities need to be on the forefront of battle against climate change, and cities, by their very nature, can play a large role in this battle. But the broader environmental threat of traffic or factory emissions isn’t the only concern cities have. Finding ways to improve the daily life and health of citizens, by passing regulations and using planning that reduces pollution, no matter how obvious and easily quantified it is, will be an increasingly important goal for administrators.

Dealing With Traffic in the Most Congested Cities in the World

2017-03-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles traffic is getting worse as its economy
improves. Photo: Shutterstock

Traffic congestion is a plague in large cities, something that comedians have been making light of for decades, but which costs billions in lost revenue and wasted gas. According to INRIX, a Washington-based firm that focuses on traffic data, Los Angeles leads the world in congestion, with the average amount of time spent in traffic jams and money lost because of them the highest of 1,064 cities surveyed. That survey did not include China, Japan, or Australia though, where data was collected was not complete enough for comparison.

As Los Angeles continues to grow and its economy continues to improve, the problem of traffic congestion will likely get worse before it gets better.

“In LA the unemployment rate drop was the sixth-largest drop in the country among metro areas, and real GDP growth rose 4 percent,” INRIX Senior Economist Bob Pishue told Forbes. “We’re seeing a definite impact of an improving economy on an already strained road system.”

But planners and researchers are looking for ways to fix things. Improved access to parking, which causes some 30 percent of the traffic jams there, is one thing that absolutely needs work. Installing smart traffic lights and improving access to ride-share programs provide cheap ways to improve things as well.

Los Angeles voters recently approved a $120 billion investment in subway, light rail and bus system improvements over the next three decades, which is the largest such increase in the country. Mass transit is the obvious answer to traffic congestion, but three decades is a long time to wait for improved traffic conditions, so other plans must be put into effect sooner in order to ease congestion.

A mixture of small and large programs is likely going to be necessary to improve the situation in Los Angeles, as well as in Moscow, New York, San Francisco, and Bogota, the next four worst cities for traffic congestion.

“We want to kickstart a conversation with cities and states about [congestion]—and what to do about it,” said Pishue.

Ben Carson Confirmed as HUD Secretary

2017-03-02T14:47:00.000-08:00

Dr. Ben Carson was confirmed as HUD Secretary on March 2.
Photo: Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com

In a vote that came largely down party lines, retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was confirmed March 2 as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development.

Carson has no experience managing large bureaucracies, and his only experience with HUD’s affairs is that he grew up in public housing. However, according to the Chicago Tribune, Carson has said he will embark on a “listening tour” in hopes of learning from long-time HUD employees.

Carson’s conservative view of public assistance has urban policy experts and progressive activists concerned that he will cut money for government assistance programs, particularly those that HUD manages such as rental assistance, programs to reduce homelessness, and investments to combat urban poverty.

During his confirmation hearing in January, Carson said he wanted to take a “holistic” approach to public assistance, and involve the private sector and faith-based groups in programs that support low-income and homeless Americans.

Surprisingly, some progressives in the Senate gave Carson their support. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, to the disappointment of many, was one of those. But although she supported his nomination in committee, she voted against confirming him.

“Dr. Carson’s answers [in the committee hearing] weren’t perfect. But at his hearing, he committed to track and report on conflicts of interest at the agency,” Warren wrote in a Facebook post. “In his written responses to me he made good, detailed promises on everything from protecting anti-homelessness programs to enforcing fair housing laws. Promises that—if they are honored—would help a lot of working families.”

Warren did acknowledge that people are right to be skeptical about whether Carson will keep those promises, and said that she is skeptical, too. But, she said, a different HUD secretary nominee might not even be willing to make those promises to begin with.

“If Dr. Carson doesn’t follow through on his commitments, I will be the very first person he hears from—loudly and clearly and frequently,” she added.

Carson did say in his hearing before the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs that he would continue to enforce the Fair Housing Act. “I think the Fair House Amendment in 1968 was one of the best pieces of legislation that we’ve had…LBJ said nobody could possibly question this; I agree with him,” Carson said.

It’s not clear where Carson stands on the matter of whether lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender Americans should get fair housing consideration. While he said in committee that he “absolutely would” direct HUD to protect LGBT people from housing discrimination, he said later the same day that LGBT people don’t deserve “extra rights,” which many people on both sides of the aisle believe is a way of saying that he doesn’t believe that LGBT people need protection against discrimination.

All this boils down to the fact that there’s a lot that is still unknown about what Carson will do as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. It remains to be seen whether his ideas and actions will help or harm the people that HUD programs support.

Technology and Urban Mobility

2017-02-27T10:27:00.000-08:00

Will electric and automated cars make the roads safer and more efficient?
Image: Shutterstock

Urban mobility is a serious issue for much of the world’s population, especially as more and more people keep moving to cities. Finding ways to relieve congestion and get people where they need to go is a constant struggle, but recent technological developments might be able to make bigger changes than we’ve traditionally seen.

Ridesharing apps are an obvious example, with people cutting down on individual vehicle use; this subsequently means fewer cars on the road and less pollution. Other digital tools, like increased Wi-Fi access and apps that allow people to more easily navigate and pay for mass transit, can help get people using busses and trains instead of driving.

Electric car technology has come a long way in recent years, and fully electric cars could one day soon be a lot more common than they are now. But while that means less pollution, it doesn’t necessarily mean less congestion. In fact, it could lead to more people feeling less guilty about driving instead of taking mass transit.

Similarly, automated cars would also likely not solve the congestion problem, and may actually contribute to it. Owning a self-driven car would grant people the same benefit of not having to actively pay attention while on the road – but being able to do so in the comfort of one’s own car instead of a questionably clean bus or train seat. On the other hand, automated cars could make driving a lot safer, preventing accidents – which are often the fault of human error. Self-driven cars have some major barriers to overcome still, but we’re getting closer each day.

Of course, none of these technologies are going to solve all of the problems of urban mobility, and in fact they might even make some things worse. But they are here, and they’re going to continue developing, so it is in everyone’s best interest to keep them in mind and figure out how best to use them. Policy and infrastructure changes over the next several decades need to take into account the increase in electric and automated cars – ideally adding more charging stations, and perhaps requiring special lanes for automated vehicles. The same goes for convincing people to use such vehicles, by providing tax incentives, or increasing taxation on the use of traditional vehicles.

What are your thoughts on electric and automated vehicles and how they will (and already do) impact cities?

“Urban Renewal” and the History of Urban Development

2017-02-25T10:20:00.000-08:00

Urban renewal was on the surface a positive
initiative - but it had profoundly negative
impacts on local communities.
Image: Shutterstock

Urban development has a long history, and it isn’t always an easy one to follow – nor is it always positive. The processes by which cities have grown and developed are not always good for everyone, and one phrase has a complicated, often negative history: urban renewal.

Urban renewal was the motto of several programs in the post-war United States, personified by the Housing Act of 1949, the Housing Act of 1954, and the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. These acts, lasting until the 1970s, provided the impetus for a widespread “cleaning up” of undesirable sections of cities to replace them with newer construction for one reason or another. Most often, this included bulldozing an area and building new construction, instead of retrofitting existing buildings or roads.

While the goal on the surface seemed honorable, the truth is that people and businesses were almost always displaced by this process – and those people were overwhelmingly African Americans and other minorities. And though in some cases people were given some assistance in finding a new place to live, this didn’t change the fact that their neighborhoods had been destroyed, scattering people throughout the city. Aside from the social impact on individuals, businesses in such neighborhoods often closed and never reopened – without the existing neighborhood and the customer base those businesses had built up, they couldn’t survive the transition.

It was a specific kind of urban development, one infused with the idea that clearance, destroying the old, was the only way to implement the new. And while it had numerous, powerful champions, it had many more detractors – and those detractors had a devastating impact. This is part of the reason there is now a push toward conservation, of finding ways to work with existing buildings and spaces, preventing when possible the destruction of the old for the sake of the new.

Luckily, with the modern focus on sustainability and environmental impact, it is unlikely that we’ll see any great return to the “urban renewal” of the mid to late twentieth century.

Have you witnessed “urban renewal” in your city, or was someone you know impacted by it?