Here is an interesting chart from the New York Times explaining the disproportionate impact that highway and urban renewal projects have had on non-white families in the US. The x-axis is the non-white population share in 1950. And the y-axis is the percentage of displaced families that were non-white. What this means is that the diagonal dotted line through the middle represents a kind of racially balanced displacement.
However, as you can tell from the graph, displacement from 1950 to 1966 was not balanced. In Providence, for example, only 3% of families were non-white in 1950. But these families represented 31% of the ones displaced for renewal projects. In Philadelphia, about 18% of families were non-white, but here they represented 71% of those displaced.
I don't think that this will be news to a lot of you. "Urban renewal" is a loaded term in American urbanism. But the article does do a great job of taking you back through time in cities like Houston, Chicago, and New York. The article is also by Adam Paul Susaneck, who is the founder of Segregation by Design. If you're interested in this topic, I would encourage you to check out his website.
According to this recent New York Times article, California is set to put into effect a new mandate that would require 100% of passenger vehicle sales in the state to be fully electric by 2035. Included within this mandate are also interim targets: 35% of all sales by 2026 and 68% of all sales by 2030.
When I first read the article, my first thought was: "Isn't 2035 kind of far away? Can't we do this sooner?" And this is usually how my mind works when I see some date in the future. But then I remembered that EV sales last year in the US only totaled somewhere around 5% of all sales.
So there is work to be done, and mandates like this will certainly help. As I understand it, this will be the first mandate of its kind in the US and also one of the strictest in the world. A lot of other countries have simply set targets, rather than all-out bans.
This is what it means to lead. You do things before others.
Connor Dougherty published this thoughtful piece about NIMBYs over the weekend in the New York Times. And it has been making the rounds online ever since.
It is thoughtful in that Connor tries to understand what makes NIMBYs tick. And he does this by interviewing people like Susan Kirsch, a resident of Marin County, California who generally opposes all of the things that California is doing to try and address its housing shortage and who has been fighting a townhouse project in her neighborhood for the last 18 years.
The developer, who is now 86, started the project in his 60s. In the article he is quoted saying that he's either going to succeed or he's going to die. It's one or the other.
What is clear is that we all see things differently. While some people might see new housing as serving an important need. Others see new development as running counter to environmentalism and good stewardship. Indeed, for some, there is no shortage of housing (even in cities that are growing in population). It's simply a problem of too many investors buying and creating rental homes or too many Airbnbs or some other red herring.
Whatever the case may be, it's hard not to pay attention to quotes like this one:
“From my backyard I see the hillside,” Ms. Kirsch wrote from her Hotmail account. “Explain how my property value is not deflated if open space is replace(d) with view-blocking, dense, unsightly buildings.”
Look, we all get this. Nobody wants their views obstructed. Nobody wants more cars parked in their neighborhood. And nobody wants more dog shit in their local park, among many other things. But implicit in this statement is a view that certain people's needs and desires are more important than those of others. I was here first. Too bad for you.
Here is an interesting chart from the New York Times explaining the disproportionate impact that highway and urban renewal projects have had on non-white families in the US. The x-axis is the non-white population share in 1950. And the y-axis is the percentage of displaced families that were non-white. What this means is that the diagonal dotted line through the middle represents a kind of racially balanced displacement.
However, as you can tell from the graph, displacement from 1950 to 1966 was not balanced. In Providence, for example, only 3% of families were non-white in 1950. But these families represented 31% of the ones displaced for renewal projects. In Philadelphia, about 18% of families were non-white, but here they represented 71% of those displaced.
I don't think that this will be news to a lot of you. "Urban renewal" is a loaded term in American urbanism. But the article does do a great job of taking you back through time in cities like Houston, Chicago, and New York. The article is also by Adam Paul Susaneck, who is the founder of Segregation by Design. If you're interested in this topic, I would encourage you to check out his website.
According to this recent New York Times article, California is set to put into effect a new mandate that would require 100% of passenger vehicle sales in the state to be fully electric by 2035. Included within this mandate are also interim targets: 35% of all sales by 2026 and 68% of all sales by 2030.
When I first read the article, my first thought was: "Isn't 2035 kind of far away? Can't we do this sooner?" And this is usually how my mind works when I see some date in the future. But then I remembered that EV sales last year in the US only totaled somewhere around 5% of all sales.
So there is work to be done, and mandates like this will certainly help. As I understand it, this will be the first mandate of its kind in the US and also one of the strictest in the world. A lot of other countries have simply set targets, rather than all-out bans.
This is what it means to lead. You do things before others.
Connor Dougherty published this thoughtful piece about NIMBYs over the weekend in the New York Times. And it has been making the rounds online ever since.
It is thoughtful in that Connor tries to understand what makes NIMBYs tick. And he does this by interviewing people like Susan Kirsch, a resident of Marin County, California who generally opposes all of the things that California is doing to try and address its housing shortage and who has been fighting a townhouse project in her neighborhood for the last 18 years.
The developer, who is now 86, started the project in his 60s. In the article he is quoted saying that he's either going to succeed or he's going to die. It's one or the other.
What is clear is that we all see things differently. While some people might see new housing as serving an important need. Others see new development as running counter to environmentalism and good stewardship. Indeed, for some, there is no shortage of housing (even in cities that are growing in population). It's simply a problem of too many investors buying and creating rental homes or too many Airbnbs or some other red herring.
Whatever the case may be, it's hard not to pay attention to quotes like this one:
“From my backyard I see the hillside,” Ms. Kirsch wrote from her Hotmail account. “Explain how my property value is not deflated if open space is replace(d) with view-blocking, dense, unsightly buildings.”
Look, we all get this. Nobody wants their views obstructed. Nobody wants more cars parked in their neighborhood. And nobody wants more dog shit in their local park, among many other things. But implicit in this statement is a view that certain people's needs and desires are more important than those of others. I was here first. Too bad for you.
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