I’ll be on vacation until Monday Dec. 27, so you’ll have to make do. To keep you busy ’til then, here are a few links to interesting stories:
• Greensboro’s Kristen Jeffers writes in Grist.org about the distressing lack of black, female “urbanists.” “When I look around,” she writes, “I mostly see only one type of person associated with the urbanist label: young, white, and male. … The word ‘urban,’ when it’s associated with African-Americans, is often synonymous with housing projects, poverty, and the poisoned legacy of urban renewal. ” She’s an MPA student at UNC Greensboro concentrating in community and economic development. (Here’s her blog, The Black Urbanist.)
• The state of Oregon is considering a measure to ban single-use plastic checkout bags.
• Fort Worth’s City Council has pulled the plug on further study of a downtown streetcar. This appears to mean the city won’t accept a $25 million federal grant. (Hey, wonder if any of that now-available streetcar money might float Charlotte’s way?)
• A study at University of California-Berkeley finds that at any given moment there are at least 500 million EMPTY parking spaces in the U.S. Says Donald Shoup, a UCLA urban planning professor and author of the book “The High Cost of Free Parking.” “[Parking] is the single biggest land use in any city. It’s kind of like dark matter in the universe, we know it’s there, but we don’t have any idea how much there is.”
• CNN puts Charlotte on the map. Literally. In a piece, “Can streetcars save America’s cities?
• Utah mom cited for neglect for letting her kid walk to school by himself. Note: The school system, in budget cuts, took away his school bus. Coming soon to a CMS school near you?