I was out for dinner this evening and the topic of road tolls (road pricing) came up. All of us at the table agreed that this was a missed opportunity for Toronto. Yes we proposed it, but then we got cold feet and backed away.
Why might this be a good idea?
City Observatory did a good job explaining this with their post about free ice cream day at Ben & Jerry’s. They argued that this sort of promotion actually provides a great crash course in transportation economics. Nobody is paying, but the lines are real long.
Here’s an excerpt:
Substitute “freeway” for “free cone” and you’ve got a pretty good description of how transportation economics works. When it comes to our road system, every rush hour is like free cone day at Ben and Jerry’s. The customers (drivers) are paying zero for their use of the limited capacity of the road system, and we’re rationing this valuable product based on people’s willingness to tolerate delays (with the result that lot’s of people who don’t attach a particularly high value to their time are slowing down things for everyone).
What we are talking about is simple, but apparently it’s not easy to execute on.
I have decided to spin-off the Architect This City identity into a weekly newsletter that I’m referring to as a “curated city building bulletin.” (This is as a result of the unbranding of this blog last week.)
The inaugural issue went out this past Monday at 9am eastern with a collection of city building-related links. And that was it. This is not another blog. I’m not writing any new content for it. It’s simply going to be a collection of links to things that I think city builders would find interesting and/or valuable.
Here’s why I decided to do this:
It allows me to keep this new bulletin entirely focused on one thing. You’re not going to find me sneaking in a link about snowboarding, wine or something else that I’m interested in. It’s strictly about targeting city builders. (Of course, city building can be a pretty broad topic.)
Keeping in mind what I wrote yesterday about saying no, I also chose this format because the additional workload for me will be minimal. In order for me to write a daily blog like this one, I have found that I need to keep a running list of reading material. But a lot of what’s on this list (stored in Pocket) never sees the light of day – there’s only so much I can write about. This new bulletin will be a quick way for me to share the rest of it.
Finally, I’m also hoping it’ll be an efficient way for me to share the links, events, projects, and other things I receive from readers. In an ideal world, the bulletin will evolve into having a “links” section and a “from the community” section – which will be things that subscribers send me but today don’t get shared.
So that’s the plan. If that sounds good to you, please subscribe at architectthiscity.com.
To kick things off, I’m going to be giving away 5 x free ATC t-shirts. (See photo at the top of this post.) To win one, just (1) subscribe and tweet out a link to this new city building bulletin, (2) tag @athiscity, and (3) tell everyone which city/town you live in.
Regularly scheduled programming will resume tomorrow.
Gangi, Palermo - Sicily by Claudio Siragusa on 500px
Buy real estate. It always goes up. That’s the mantra, right?
Few things in life are that black and white.
A small town in Sicily called Gangi is in the midst of a novel urban renewal experiment. They are giving away houses for free to people who will agree to renovate them within a 4 year time period.
Here’s the “free houses” notice from the Comune Di Gangi explaining how it works and who to contact. You have to be an Italian or EU citizen to participate.
Free can be a powerful business model, as we see all the time with tech companies. And sometimes cities and towns aren’t all that different.
So if you’re looking for a vacation home or want to move to Sicily, now might be a great time.