Des' City Links of the Week 2021-05-20
This week's planning, transport, and urban development links of interest
Hi everyone,
Here are a few interesting reads on cities, development, and transport that I’ve come across recently. Please share! [NL] or [FR]? Usually the link will be image-heavy. In Chrome, right click and select ‘Translate to English’ for the text.
Planning/Development
Let’s visit a new build art deco Texas Donut in suburban Utrecht!
https://architectenweb.nl/projecten/project.aspx?ID=41428 [NL, pics]
“the results suggest that individual economic circumstances importantly influence political beliefs and behavior, and suggest that homeowners have special influence in American politics”
http://stanford.edu/~yoderj/homeowner.pdf [PDF]
Let’s see the winners of Low Rise, Los Angeles’ missing middle housing competition:
https://lowrise.la/winners
“We show that new buildings absorb many high-income households and increase the local housing stock substantially. If buildings improve nearby amenities, the effect is not large enough to increase rents.”
https://direct.mit.edu/rest/article/doi/10.1162/rest_a_01055/100977/Local-Effects-of-Large-New-Apartment-Buildings-in
In Québec, a new citywide strategy to encourage the redevelopment of older shopping centres:
https://www.lesoleil.com/actualite/la-capitale/la-ville-prend-en-main-le-developpement-immobilier-des-80-centres-commerciaux-de-la-capitale-6c6877d7a34e65fc587f8cb2a4b3a6fe [FR]
In San Diego, the evidence shows that parking requirements are not a bargaining chip when negotiating affordable housing:
https://cal.streetsblog.org/2021/05/19/parking-requirements-are-not-a-useful-bargaining-chip-for-increasing-affordable-housing/
Mobility/Transport
Here’s an atlas of parking reform efforts worldwide:
https://www.parkingreformatlas.org/
What it’s like to be a fietsimmigrant; nice profile of youtuber Not Just Bikes:
https://www.fietsersbond.nl/nieuws/canadese-fietsimmigrant-opent-nederlanders-de-ogen/ [NL]
Kansas City, the original home of the word jaywalking, decriminalizes midblock crossings after analysis reveals racial disparities in enforcement:
https://www.thepitchkc.com/jaywalking-has-been-erased-from-kc-the-place-where-the-term-was-born/
Centreline hardening measures to slow left turns and improve safety for people walking, are spreading from New York to the west coast:
https://www.theurbanist.org/2021/05/13/rainier-ave-crosswalks-to-receive-pedestrian-improvements-in-form-of-hardened-centerlines/
NACTO overview on what needs to change in the update for the Manual of Uniform Traffic Control Devices:
https://nacto.org/2021/05/11/a-blueprint-to-update-americas-street-manual/
A sadness-inducing map of Canada’s passenger railway service in 1950 and 1980:
https://seanmarshall.ca/2021/05/11/slow-decline-of-canadas-passenger-rail/
Here’s a French state guide with eight key recommendations for making transport networks more cycling friendly:
https://www.cerema.fr/fr/centre-ressources/boutique/rendre-sa-voirie-cyclable [FR]