Along for the Ride #178
Along for the Ride #178
How to design a city for romance ❤️
Heya friends, happy Friday!
I am a big believer in Valentine’s day, and this year I’m certainly extending it out a couple days. I was reading an article about what Paris—the City of Love—can teach us about designing cities for love and romance (if you haven’t gathered yet… I am a Romantic™️). So, here are two treats for you: (1) cute valentines, and (2) a reminder that the Bare Naked Ladies hit single One Week is available for you to listen to on repeat.
Celebrating Black Excellence
This week’s focus is on Black Urbanism, a term that encompasses urban planning centred around Black communities and their experiences. As Columbia’s GSAPP puts it, “Black urbanism is characterized as the ongoing resilience of black communities in urban environments despite legacies of segregation, gentrification, and historical disinvestment.”
Pulling a few resources I’ve found helpful below to help build our collective understanding of Black Urbanism:
How Black urbanists are leading the fight for more inclusive cities: This article delves into how white urbanists overlooked the lives of Black people and communities in planning practices. It is a fairly light introduction to these ideas for people looking for a place to start understanding how traditional urban planning processes were designed to exclude and limit opportunities for Black people.
Valuing Black lives and Black cities: This piece discusses how historical and contemporary socioeconomic barriers to home ownership continue to maintain the racial wealth divide. Understanding how redlining, mortgages, and
Repositioning Black urbanists in planning history: This article explores how the history of planning is dominated by a few iconic figures—all white. “A planning education that focuses solely on a few predominantly white heroic figures is incomplete and unethical,” says Daphne Lundi.
Government and Policy
Wuxi implements China’s first ever internet law for AVs
Effective on March 1, the new guidelines promote the development of car networking technologies to support smart transport and smart cities. The guidelines place an emphasis on cybersecurity and personal information protection legislation. Any data collected from AVs are to be stored on domestic servers, and any data needed to be sent overseas will have to undergo a security review.
Autonomous trucking companies struggle against California policies
Namely a proposed bill that mandates that a trained human safety operator needs to be present any time a heavy-duty autonomous vehicle operates on public roads in the state. The bill for operators is considered “prohibitive”, but honestly as a person who traverses California’s road network and is fairly read-up on AV technology.. in the short term I think having a back-up safety driver makes a lot of sense.
Engaging disenfranchised communities in transportation planning
This article explores the development of Baltimore & Potomac Tunnel replacement project that runs through a Black community that has already been divided by a highway. It describes the city’s public engagement process, demonstrating “how equity needs to always be at the forefront of every project and engagement effort.”
Industry
There’s a lot of turmoil in the industry at large at the moment, but I have to say I do not envy those who currently work at Tesla under the management of a megalomaniac. It seems Tesla’s very bad luck* continues as they recalled over 360,000 cars “to update its Full Self-Driving (FSD) Beta software after regulators said on Thursday the driver assistance system did not adequately adhere to traffic safety laws and could cause crashes.”
*We all know its intention mismanagement. As a little extra, here’s a fun super bowl ad talking the dangers of Tesla’s Full Self-Driving software (#sports). And yes, some other tech multi-millionaire did spend $600k on that ad (Fortune). And one last spot of good news… a Tesla engineer thinks the company should put limits on Autopilot (NYTs).
Amazon starts testing Zoox’s technology on city streets
Amazon is testing a fleet of driverless shuttles in California, starting off by using employees as passengers. The design of the vehicle features no steering wheel or pedals, and has room for four passengers, with two facing each other.
Research and Academia
Making space for young girls in urban planning
“Young girls are overwhelmingly excluded from public spaces. Public spaces, like parks and multi-use game areas, are instead often planned and designed for stereotypical boys and young men. As a result, investments such as skate parks, BMX tracks, and football pitches are used almost entirely by boys. We think the exclusion of girls and young women’s needs from the planning and designing of these public spaces is a problem and that girls and young women need to be involved in their public spaces through researching their own spatial experiences, having a voice in planning, and informing design.”
Are traffic studies “junk science” that don’t belong in court?
“Jurisdictions rely heavily on traffic impact analyses (TIAs) to predict the traffic impacts of projects and calibrate appropriate mitigations. But TIAs are also litigation tools: Jurisdictions use them to satisfy courts that their land use decisions are supported by substantial evidence, or evidence that is credible and reliable. The problem, as we discuss in this Viewpoint, is that TIAs are not consistently credible and reliable. Historically, courts have not expected much from TIAs, but our analysis shows a tipping point in which courts may begin to question whether conventional TIA methods constitute substantial evidence, suggesting an important need to innovate and adopt new data and methods in practice.”
Opinion
“But by choosing a car-free or car-light life, you can play a part in effecting that kind of change from the bottom up, which builds pressure for better transportation policy from the top down. For many people I spoke with, not driving engenders a strong sense of pride and satisfaction, of building a better world.. At its best, local government reflects the interests of the people who live there; not having a car can push you to be a little more civically engaged — and, in turn, push your leaders to make life better for non-drivers.”
Extra Bits + Bobs
Fun things to apply for!
Be my colleague! I am still devastated about the loss that is Laura Fox stepping down from her role as the General Manager of Citi Bike (see Laura’s guest edition of this newsletter here!). However, maybe you want to fill her shoes? Job posting is here, and my inbox is always open for interested individuals.
Apply for the Urban95 Academy! The Urban95 Academy is a fully-sponsored leadership program, delivered online over six weeks, to help city leaders design better cities for young children and their caregivers. Deadline is February 20th (Cohort 4) and April 24th (Cohort 5).
Urbanism Next is hiring a Research Associate! The Urbanism Next Center at the University of Oregon conducts research and convenes partners from around the world to understand the impacts of new mobility, urban delivery, and autonomous vehicles on the built environment.
That’s all from me. Have a beautiful weekend friends!
Sarah