Earlier today I tweeted this:

What Other Cities Learned: These five tore down highways and reaped the rewards. http://t.co/aR8STHTX9o #urbanism pic.twitter.com/I07iwRF8EP

— Brandon G. Donnelly (@donnelly_b)

December 17, 2014

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It’s a link to an article talking about 5 cities – New York, Milwaukee, Seoul, Portland, and San Francisco – who all demolished an elevated highway that used to run through their downtowns.

To be completely fair, some of these cities didn’t really have a choice. San Francisco’s Central Freeway was so badly damaged in an earthquake that it had to be closed. But it doesn’t make the lessons any less relevant.

In all of these cases, the elevated highways were taken down and never replaced with another highway. Some were turned into large boulevards. Others were turned into parks. But in none of the cases was a new road of similar capacity built.

Intuitively it might seem like this would cause utter chaos. I mean, where were all of these cars going to go? 

But that didn’t happen. Instead, demand redistributed itself. Car volumes dropped dramatically. More people took transit. Some people took other routes. And some people traveled at different times. Oh, and nearby property values all went up.

And the reason this happened is because of something that economists call induced demand (I’ve written about it before, here). What it means is that as you increase the supply of some valuable good (such as free highways), more of that good becomes demanded.

In other words: more free highways = more cars on the road.

So if you’re a city – like Toronto – with an elevated highway running through your downtown, you should give this some serious thought. The outcomes aren’t as bad as you might think. In fact, they’re quite good.

Image: Seoul via D Magazine

Earlier this week Richard Florida published on article on CityLab talking about the relationship between tech innovation (in cities) and inequality. Specifically, the article deals with the correlation between venture capital investment and a variety of factors, such as monthly housing costs, wage and income inequality, and so on.

The intent of the piece was to address the growing backlash against tech workers – in places like San Francisco – who have become the symbol for the growing gap between the rich and poor.

The strongest correlation appears to exist between venture capital investment and housing costs. As the amount of venture capital goes up, so do housing costs – which probably shouldn’t surprise you. The rich start outbidding the poor for housing. Note: The two outlying dots at the top right, in the graph below, are Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

But when it comes to inequality, the relationship isn’t so clear. For wage inequality, there seems to be a relationship. But for the broader income inequality measure, the relationship is fairly weak. Here’s the graph:

So this is not as black and white as it might seem. Regardless, Florida ends the piece with the following statement (that I think is spot on):

It’s time to stop pointing fingers and get on with the far more important task of harnessing the urban tech revolution to create a new urban middle class and a more inclusive urbanism—one in which many more workers and residents can participate, and one from which many more can benefit.

The answer is not to stop innovating. That would be counterproductive. We should be be encouraging innovation, but at the same time figuring out how best to harness it for society as a whole.

Tomorrow, I’ll touch a bit more on how we might go about doing that. I have a post planned that I think will tie in really nicely to this discussion. So stay tuned.

Earlier today I tweeted this:

What Other Cities Learned: These five tore down highways and reaped the rewards. http://t.co/aR8STHTX9o #urbanism pic.twitter.com/I07iwRF8EP

— Brandon G. Donnelly (@donnelly_b)

December 17, 2014

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

It’s a link to an article talking about 5 cities – New York, Milwaukee, Seoul, Portland, and San Francisco – who all demolished an elevated highway that used to run through their downtowns.

To be completely fair, some of these cities didn’t really have a choice. San Francisco’s Central Freeway was so badly damaged in an earthquake that it had to be closed. But it doesn’t make the lessons any less relevant.

In all of these cases, the elevated highways were taken down and never replaced with another highway. Some were turned into large boulevards. Others were turned into parks. But in none of the cases was a new road of similar capacity built.

Intuitively it might seem like this would cause utter chaos. I mean, where were all of these cars going to go? 

But that didn’t happen. Instead, demand redistributed itself. Car volumes dropped dramatically. More people took transit. Some people took other routes. And some people traveled at different times. Oh, and nearby property values all went up.

And the reason this happened is because of something that economists call induced demand (I’ve written about it before, here). What it means is that as you increase the supply of some valuable good (such as free highways), more of that good becomes demanded.

In other words: more free highways = more cars on the road.

So if you’re a city – like Toronto – with an elevated highway running through your downtown, you should give this some serious thought. The outcomes aren’t as bad as you might think. In fact, they’re quite good.

Image: Seoul via D Magazine

Earlier this week Richard Florida published on article on CityLab talking about the relationship between tech innovation (in cities) and inequality. Specifically, the article deals with the correlation between venture capital investment and a variety of factors, such as monthly housing costs, wage and income inequality, and so on.

The intent of the piece was to address the growing backlash against tech workers – in places like San Francisco – who have become the symbol for the growing gap between the rich and poor.

The strongest correlation appears to exist between venture capital investment and housing costs. As the amount of venture capital goes up, so do housing costs – which probably shouldn’t surprise you. The rich start outbidding the poor for housing. Note: The two outlying dots at the top right, in the graph below, are Silicon Valley and San Francisco.

But when it comes to inequality, the relationship isn’t so clear. For wage inequality, there seems to be a relationship. But for the broader income inequality measure, the relationship is fairly weak. Here’s the graph:

So this is not as black and white as it might seem. Regardless, Florida ends the piece with the following statement (that I think is spot on):

It’s time to stop pointing fingers and get on with the far more important task of harnessing the urban tech revolution to create a new urban middle class and a more inclusive urbanism—one in which many more workers and residents can participate, and one from which many more can benefit.

The answer is not to stop innovating. That would be counterproductive. We should be be encouraging innovation, but at the same time figuring out how best to harness it for society as a whole.

Tomorrow, I’ll touch a bit more on how we might go about doing that. I have a post planned that I think will tie in really nicely to this discussion. So stay tuned.