Category: CMS

‘City-Suburban Smackdown’ and other news

Cities v. Suburbs: The Carbon Smackdown: The infrastructurist.com in “New Study: Suburbs Can Pollute More Than Cities” reports on a new study that may set some conventional wisdom on its ear: “When blame is assigned for greenhouse gas emissions, big cities typically receive more of it than smaller cities and suburbs. But a new report in a recent issue from of Environment & Urbanization suggests casting a more nuanced net of responsibility. In fact, contrary to popular wisdom, cities can have a per capita rate of greenhouse gas emissions that’s astonishingly lower than rates in their surrounding suburbs.”

Schoolyard Fight – Green V. Urban: This article from the Boston Globe, “Green Building,” is making the rounds among landscape architects, urban designers and related folks. New Urbanist leader Andres Duany (a graduate of Princeton and Yale) is picking a fight with Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. When Duany was in Charlotte earlier this month he told me one reason he was kicking up dust was to energize young New Urbanists. It’s a movement, he said, that needs people with the energy to enjoy Sisyphean tasks.

Ex-mill town nurtures its downtown. Kannapolis, a one-time mill town built and dominated for decades by the Cannon family and Cannon Mills, was for years the largest unincorporated town in North Carolina. It finally incorporated in 1984. It’s an interesting place, especially if you’re keen on N.C. history, because many of the mill houses, built for the textile workers, still exist. So does the Williamsburg-style brick downtown.

Cannon Mills became Pillowtex, which abruptly closed in 2003, sending thousands out of work. The former Cannon Mills Plant No. 1 was demolished to make way for the still unfinished N.C. Research Campus. (I’m leaving out a lot. For more, see the N.C. Research Campus site here.)

Kannapolis is working on a new downtown plan. Here’s a link to a draft of the plan. And here’s an article from the Independent Tribune.com, by former Observerite Karen Cimino Wilson. A big problem: Since the huge mill closed the downtown stores have suffered. Among the proposals: Transforming Dale Earnhardt Boulevard/Loop Road from a suburban highway to an “urban boulevard.” Building a City Market building. Creating better gateways to the downtown area.

K-12 Transportation Costs: Charles Marohn, New Urban Network writes about what he sees as school transportation policies that subsidize inefficient development patterns. In the New Urban Network, he writes: “Door-to-door transportation for K-12 students may seem to be a compassionate policy from a society that values both students and education. That may be the intent, but the transportation mandate ultimately takes money from classrooms to subsidize our inefficient, post-WW II development pattern. In the end, it also devalues traditional, neighborhood schools in favor of the remote, campus-style we now build.”

Be forewarned. Marohn makes explicit that he’s not considering the considerable issues of race and school integration: “Again, I’m not trying to get into a broader discussion on race. I’m not thinking that big,” he cautions.

With Gov. Bev Perdue proposing making counties, not the state, responsible for buying school buses – one gigantic unfunded mandate – and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools for all practical purposes resegregated anyway (I’m not supporting that, but acknowledging reality) it’s past time for CMS and the city and county local governments to work together to make it easier for kids who do live within a mile of schools to be able to walk there safely. And for CATS and CMS to figure out better ways to collaborate. And for parents to stop being afraid that putting a 10-year-old on a city bus is a huge risk, when in fact the much bigger risk is putting a kid into a private auto. Remember, car wrecks are the leading cause of death for Americans ages 1-35.

Parking lots as polluters

We know driving creates pollution: ozone, other toxic tailpipe emissions such as particulates, contaminated water that runs off streets, the heat island effect of the asphalted street and highway network, etc. etc. But until now, few people had studied the polluting effect of parking lots.

But Eric Jaffe, in The Infrastructurist, writes about new work from researchers at University of California at Berkeley that looks at energy and emissions related to America’s vast parking infrastructure. The researchers write,

“The environmental effects of parking are not just from encouraging the use of the automobile over public transit or walking and biking (thus favoring the often more energy-intensive and polluting mode), but also from the material and process requirements in direct, indirect, and supply chain activities related to building and maintaining the infrastructure.”

There’s no national inventory of how many parking spaces, lots, decks are out there – one academic who’s studied parking compares it to the “dark matter” in the universe – but the researchers point to such things as the heat island effect, where pavement raises summer temperatures which requires more energy for air-conditioning, etc. They calculated that when parking spots are taken into account, an average car’s per-mile carbon emissions go up as much as 10 percent.

And as long as we’re trashing parking places (which even die-hard environmentalists probably wish they could find as they circle, circle, circle the lot on the Saturday before Christmas) check out “Six Reasons Free Parking Is the Dumbest Thing You Didn’t Know You Were Subsidizing,” by Christopher Mims in grist.org. The point is not that we shouldn’t have parking, but that we should all be a lot more aware of the costs of building and providing it. Maybe we’d be more conservative in how we spend that money – if we realized we were spending it.

And for a parking-related footnote, here’s a way Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools might bring in a bit more revenue so CMS won’t have to cut a whopping $100 million from the budget and lay off 1,500 people including hundreds of teachers:

Charge high school students more money to park their cars. If CMS provides buses to the schools (which it does, except to magnet high schools) then families that opt to let kids drive can pay for the privilege. Wake County Schools charge $170 and they’re raising the fee. CMS charges $25. Ahem.

Each parking space adds $2,500 to the cost of a high school, a CMS architect told me a few years ago. Yes, staffers need parking spaces, and some students probably do, too. But a lot of that money could be better spent.

Parking lots as polluters

We know driving creates pollution: ozone, other toxic tailpipe emissions such as particulates, contaminated water that runs off streets, the heat island effect of the asphalted street and highway network, etc. etc. But until now, few people had studied the polluting effect of parking lots.

But Eric Jaffe, in The Infrastructurist, writes about new work from researchers at University of California at Berkeley that looks at energy and emissions related to America’s vast parking infrastructure. The researchers write,

“The environmental effects of parking are not just from encouraging the use of the automobile over public transit or walking and biking (thus favoring the often more energy-intensive and polluting mode), but also from the material and process requirements in direct, indirect, and supply chain activities related to building and maintaining the infrastructure.”

There’s no national inventory of how many parking spaces, lots, decks are out there – one academic who’s studied parking compares it to the “dark matter” in the universe – but the researchers point to such things as the heat island effect, where pavement raises summer temperatures which requires more energy for air-conditioning, etc. They calculated that when parking spots are taken into account, an average car’s per-mile carbon emissions go up as much as 10 percent.

And as long as we’re trashing parking places (which even die-hard environmentalists probably wish they could find as they circle, circle, circle the lot on the Saturday before Christmas) check out “Six Reasons Free Parking Is the Dumbest Thing You Didn’t Know You Were Subsidizing,” by Christopher Mims in grist.org. The point is not that we shouldn’t have parking, but that we should all be a lot more aware of the costs of building and providing it. Maybe we’d be more conservative in how we spend that money – if we realized we were spending it.

And for a parking-related footnote, here’s a way Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools might bring in a bit more revenue so CMS won’t have to cut a whopping $100 million from the budget and lay off 1,500 people including hundreds of teachers:

Charge high school students more money to park their cars. If CMS provides buses to the schools (which it does, except to magnet high schools) then families that opt to let kids drive can pay for the privilege. Wake County Schools charge $170 and they’re raising the fee. CMS charges $25. Ahem.

Each parking space adds $2,500 to the cost of a high school, a CMS architect told me a few years ago. Yes, staffers need parking spaces, and some students probably do, too. But a lot of that money could be better spent.

Raleigh mayor takes on Wake schools flap

Today, I’ve got limited time so I’ll share a couple of interesting links.

1. Raleigh’s Mayor Charles Meeker is “quietly assembling a group of town mayors and ‘high level’ residents to scrutinize the student assignment plan currently being developed by the school board.” The News & Observer’s article is here. The situation is intriguing on a variety of levels.

A. Obviously, the fate of a city’s school system has a huge impact on the city’s overall economic and social well-being. Yet while our former mayor, Pat McCrory, was in office during years in which Charlotte’s public schools were in intense reassignment and re-segregation turmoil, he said virtually nothing publicly. It was a certainly a smart political survival strategy for him — CMS and race are both radioactive topics. But was it the best thing for the city?

B. Meeker’s wife, Dr. Anne McLaurin, is on the school board. Yowie. Talk about power couples.

C. With Wake County schools threatened (by a controversial majority on the school board there) with the same re-segregation that has hit Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, the Raleigh political establishment seems to be fighting back more strongly than Charlotte’s did a decade ago. There were some key differences — a court case that had to be complied with. But CMS went beyond what the court rulings required in dismantling racial integration in local schools. And of course, seeing what happened here could be fueling some of the Wake opposition to re-segregation.

D. CMS, meanwhile, is talking about closing up to 10 schools and reassigning students. Here’s Observer reporter Ann Doss Helms’ blog account of the details, which are sure to be controversial. This could have major implications for neighborhoods’ stability and futures. Are city officials and county officials at the table with CMS as it comes up with its plans? I don’t think so. They should be, and if they weren’t invited, they should be knocking down Superintendent Peter Gorman’s door.

2. In today’s New York Times is an interesting piece on a ballot measure before Florida voters that would require voter approval on changes in state-mandated growth plans. The measure is fueled in part by deep anger over over-building and over-zoning. Good idea? Bad idea?

Raleigh mayor takes on Wake schools flap

Today, I’ve got limited time so I’ll share a couple of interesting links.

1. Raleigh’s Mayor Charles Meeker is “quietly assembling a group of town mayors and ‘high level’ residents to scrutinize the student assignment plan currently being developed by the school board.” The News & Observer’s article is here. The situation is intriguing on a variety of levels.

A. Obviously, the fate of a city’s school system has a huge impact on the city’s overall economic and social well-being. Yet while our former mayor, Pat McCrory, was in office during years in which Charlotte’s public schools were in intense reassignment and re-segregation turmoil, he said virtually nothing publicly. It was a certainly a smart political survival strategy for him — CMS and race are both radioactive topics. But was it the best thing for the city?

B. Meeker’s wife, Dr. Anne McLaurin, is on the school board. Yowie. Talk about power couples.

C. With Wake County schools threatened (by a controversial majority on the school board there) with the same re-segregation that has hit Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, the Raleigh political establishment seems to be fighting back more strongly than Charlotte’s did a decade ago. There were some key differences — a court case that had to be complied with. But CMS went beyond what the court rulings required in dismantling racial integration in local schools. And of course, seeing what happened here could be fueling some of the Wake opposition to re-segregation.

D. CMS, meanwhile, is talking about closing up to 10 schools and reassigning students. Here’s Observer reporter Ann Doss Helms’ blog account of the details, which are sure to be controversial. This could have major implications for neighborhoods’ stability and futures. Are city officials and county officials at the table with CMS as it comes up with its plans? I don’t think so. They should be, and if they weren’t invited, they should be knocking down Superintendent Peter Gorman’s door.

2. In today’s New York Times is an interesting piece on a ballot measure before Florida voters that would require voter approval on changes in state-mandated growth plans. The measure is fueled in part by deep anger over over-building and over-zoning. Good idea? Bad idea?