Baltimore Harbor by Wes Bunton on 500px

Given what is going on in Baltimore and other cities in the US right now, I thought it would be worthwhile to share an interesting article from City Observatory talking about income disparity and racial segregation in cities.

There are significant racial income gaps in the United States (as well as in Canada). According to City Observatory, the average black household earns 42% less than the average white household in America. There is, of course, lots of regional variation, but this is what it looks like nationwide.

The interesting thing about this racial income gap though, is that there’s one factor that seems to account for the bulk (up to 60%) of the variation: residential segregation. In other words, the more segregated a city becomes, the more this black/white income disparity increases.

Here’s a snippet from Joe Cortright of City Observatory:

…there are good reasons to believe that high levels of segregation impair the relative economic opportunities available to black Americans. Segregation may have the effect of limiting an individual’s social networks, lowering the quality of public services, decreasing access to good schools, and increasing risk of exposure to crime, all of which may limit or reduce economic success. This is especially true in neighborhoods of concentrated poverty, which tend to be disproportionately neighborhoods of color.

We also know that there are all kinds of negative externalities associated with income inequality. Therefore, there’s a strong case to be made for addressing segregation and the spatial organization of our cities. 

I recommend you read the City Observatory article for a more nuanced explanation of the above relationship.

- by rinatus (rinatus) on 500px

Today I’m thinking about extraversion and third places within cities.

As many of you I’m sure know, the idea of a third place is that after your home (first place) and your work (second place), cities have what are known as third places. This could be a coffee shop, a barber shop, or a public space (to name only a few examples).

This, of course, is not a new idea. For decades people have been arguing that third places are essential for establishing a sense of community, place, and belonging. In fact, this emphasis on third place is one of the ingredients that made Starbucks so successful.

But with the rise of the internet and freelancing, third places are becoming even more important. That’s why coffee shops have become arguably the best example of a third place in today’s cities. They’ve even become the new second place for some (many?) people.

But beyond just a place to meet and socialize, I’ve been thinking today (while I was at a third place) about the psychological benefits of these spaces.

For example:

One of the key differences between extraverts and introverts is where they draw their energy from. For introverts, they tend to draw it from within. In order to recharge, they often feel the need to retreat and be left alone. Extroverts, on the other hand, draw their energy from the outside world. They charge up by being around other people.

When I was completing my MBA at Rotman, one of the things they had us do at the beginning and at the end of the program was complete the Myers-Brigg personality test. 

In both instances, I was as extroverted as they come (I am consistently what is known as an ENTJ). And from experience, I can say that I definitely feed off the energy of other people.

But the interesting thing about this – to tie both of these topics back together – is that there appears to be a clear correlation between extroversion and a preference for living in urban centers. And given what I just said, that probably makes sense to you.

So if you too classify yourself as an extroverted person, then third places are more than just a busy coffee shop or a vibrant public space. They are where you derive your energy and where you feel alive. And that’s a pretty powerful thing in my view.

T E S L A by Thomas Juel on 500px

Yesterday I posted a video about the career of Elon Musk. And it reminded me of something that’s been on my mind as I think about transportation, cities, and the future.

Elon’s story for why he founded SolarCity, Tesla, and SpaceX is incredibly compelling. He chose problems and industries that he felt would move humanity forward. He felt that we needed sustainable forms of energy production (SolarCity), sustainable forms of transport (Tesla), and a way for humans to occupy other planets (SpaceX). That’s incredible ambition.

Today though, I just want to focus on the transportation piece.

Electric and driverless vehicles, I believe, are a step in the right direction. I honestly believe that at some point in the not too distant future we’re going to look back at that time when people used to drive their own cars and wonder how we ever allowed that to happen.

But fundamentally, I think there still remains a question of how best to plan our cities. 

There’s lots of talk today about peak car and the death of the automobile. Certainly within planning and urbanist circles, there’s an almost universal belief that planning (most of) our cities around the car, as opposed to people, was a huge mistake. Multimodal solutions with a public transit backbone are now the way forward.

But will that always be the case as the notion of the “car” evolves?

Intuitively, driverless vehicles feels like a massive opportunity to leverage data and better optimize our private transport assets. We know that the utilization rate for most private cars is incredibly low and so there’s lots of room to improve how we use and share private vehicles and how we move people around cities.

But how big is that opportunity? Does a city filled with driverless electric vehicles and with networks like Uber mean that public transportation now becomes less important? And if so, how much less important?

I can’t help but feel like private and public transport are on a collision course right now. I suppose that isn’t anything new. But this time around I wonder if private transport won’t figure out a way to achieve similar efficiencies to large scale public transport.