City leaders are thinking globally, even as they act locally. More than 300 mayors brought local government to the international stage in June when they promised to uphold the Paris climate accord. “We can’t wait for governments to act on climate change. For solutions, look to cities,” former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Twitter.
This is part of a larger trend of cities embracing their power to change the world by activating their residents. Set against a backdrop of population growth that predicts that two-thirds of the world’s population will live in urban areas by 2030, cities are seeding interest in civic engagement and local government with citizens who are eager to create more inclusive communities. “Inequality — in access and quality of services, and therefore, opportunity — is one of the single largest threats our society faces today,” says Jeff Senne, corporate responsibility operations leader and senior director at PwC. “Cities possess the highest levels of inequality and consequently provide the greater opportunity to address the root drivers of this issue.”
Global players appear to be taking notice. At this year’s Social Innovation Summit in Chicago, representatives from city offices around the globe met with business and philanthropy leaders to discuss insights and innovations related to local and global issues.
Unlike their larger counterparts, local initiatives benefit from their scale and speed. City governments are smaller and more nimble than state and national governments. “At the city level, we can quickly impact and change residents’ lives,” says summit speaker Sharone April, director of the Jerusalem Innovation Team.
Technology also plays a role in a city’s ability to act quickly and agilely while serving its public. New online platforms, aimed at information exchanges between residents and local governments, have allowed cities to promote two-way conversations and civic engagement. In Philadelphia, a mobile lab called PHL Participatory Design Lab travels around town to give residents a chance to voice their thoughts on ways to improve their city. The city of Charlotte, N.C., plans to start a weekly podcast called Your Move, featuring city officials conversing with Millennials.
Members of the Minneapolis Innovation Team, one of about 20 innovation teams funded by Bloomberg Philanthropies, discussed their web portal for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs. The portal offers resources to fledgling entrepreneurs, such as starter guides for common business types and information on how to navigate regulatory processes.
“It’s all in response to what communities said they want,” says Brian K. Smith, director of the Minneapolis Innovation Team. “When we make it easier for small businesses and minority and immigrant entrepreneurs to access the knowledge, financial and social capital they need to be successful, we not only help the business owners at the margins. We also make everybody’s lives easier.”
A similar online platform has gained popularity in Los Angeles. In September 2016, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the Los Angeles Innovation Team introduced a program that helps small business owners cut through red tape. The open-source platform offers step-by-step guidance to overcome hurdles such as finding a location, negotiating a lease and getting a business loan. “We worked with city leaders and residents to design and test the portal and are consistently sharing the process and tools we used with other cities so that they can start with what we did and hopefully launch something even better that we can take from in the future,” says Amanda Daflos, director of the Innovation Team in the Los Angeles Mayor’s Office of Budget and Innovation.
That spirit of collaboration could be felt in another city, halfway around the world: An app called Coming Soon, based in Jerusalem, Israel, allows locals to name the types of businesses their neighborhoods lack. Coming Soon shares that information with entrepreneurs to help them target, refine and optimize their new ventures. “It provides powerful data for business owners so that they can open the right business in the right location,” April says. That data is especially powerful in a city where half of new businesses shutter within five years.
“Residents will be able to influence what is happening in their neighborhoods,” Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat said in a statement. “This will impact the city through enhanced quality of life for residents and advance the business sector—a win-win for all involved.”
The focus is specific, but the ambition is broad. By creating hyper-local initiatives that encourage an engaged public, city and industry leaders hope to affect quality of life across diverse sectors, including climate, economy, technology and opportunity. Local mayors to the world: Perhaps there’s also room to act globally, but think locally.
Presented by Social Innovation Summit. NationSwell and PwC are Social Innovation Summit partners.
Social Innovation Summit is an annual global convening of black swans and wayward thinkers. In June 2017, more than 1,400 Fortune 500 corporate executives, venture capitalists, CSR and foundation heads, government leaders, social entrepreneurs, philanthropists, activists, emerging market investors and nonprofit heads convened in Chicago to investigate solutions and catalyze inspired partnerships that are disrupting history.
Tag: cities
Your Great-Grandma’s Public Transport Is Making a Comeback
When Elon Musk announced his plans to build a Hyperloop that would travel between New York City and Washington, D.C., in 29 minutes, Twitter had a field day, with users imagining the ways the technology could be used in their cities (take a bow, NYC subway).
But in the more immediate future, there are a number of cities that have taken up something old as a way to bring about the new: streetcars.
Streetcars — which differ from light-rail systems in that they share the right-of-way with cars, pedestrians and bikes — were used heavily post–WWI in cities like New York, San Francisco and Philadelphia. These urban hubs found that the electric wiring of cars for mass transportation was more effective than the mechanical cable cars of the the previous century. But after General Motors financed a national campaign in the 1930s for the use of buses, streetcars went the way of the buggy. By the mid-’50s, they were considered obsolete.
But then something strange happened: Since 2000, streetcars have seen a resurgence in popularity. Cities like Portland and Seattle set off a national trend by using streetcars less for tourism, as they are in San Francisco and New Orleans, and more for general public use. Most are currently financed by federal and state grants. And the benefits have been measurable, from rejuvenating formerly blighted neighborhoods to offsetting carbon emissions.
But President Donald Trump recently argued to cut federal funding for streetcars, saying they should be built using local dollars. As more cities plan to lay tracks and federal funding appears uncertain, here’s what to consider before ordering a whole fleet of streetcars.
Neighborhood Renewal
For any government official interested in implementing streetcars, the gold standard can be found in Portland, Ore., which launched its system in 2001.
There, streetcars connect two major universities and hospitals, and have been credited with building up the artsy Pearl District, a former industrial neighborhood that saw millions of private-investment dollars pour into the development of mixed-use buildings along the streetcar line (though PolitiFact pointed out that a sizable chunk of those buildings were already in the works).
Former Portland Mayor Charlie Hales paid tribute to the streetcars’ effect on the Pearl District’s popularity in 2013, saying that the city “no longer [has] to provide subsidies for downtown development.”
Other cities have reaped similar rewards. Since announcing the launch of its KC Streetcar system, which began operations last year, Kansas City, Mo., has seen an increase in businesses, such as hotels and restaurants, that line the route, along with a sales tax growth of 58 percent.
Kenosha, Wisc., built its system in 2000 with a $6 million grant, and has seen its downtown perk up in the years since. A hotdog shop owner told the Associated Press in 2013 that before the streetcar, the area “was very dark. Now it’s lit up more, there are businesses,” with shops, bookstores and cafes bordering one side of the line.
Not hailed by all
Despite their popularity and proven economic benefits, not everyone is on board with the streetcar.
Less expensive than putting down light rail systems, a Federal Transit Administration report found that Portland’s streetcar system — the one lauded by transit advocates — cost $60 million per mile to build. The same study, though, gave an example that Little Rock, Arkansas’ streetcar helped spur $800 million in development between 2000 and 2012.
Jeffrey Brown, a Florida State University professor and public transit researcher, told Future Structure that investing in streetcars is “just the latest variance of that downtown revitalization agenda” and that buses — though not as trendy — would be more effective in keeping transportation costs down.
Another study done by students at the Florida State University found that compared to other modes of public transportation, streetcars underperform in bringing in transit revenue.
And streetcars are also more expensive to operate compared to buses. The Federal Transit Administration in 2014 found that streetcars cost $1.50 per passenger for every mile they ride. That cost is cut to $1.05 for buses. Another FTA report said that “regular bus service improvements are likely to be the least costly of all measures to increase transit capacity.”
So why the appeal? In Kansas City, for example, they were cheaper to build and more environmentally friendly than traditional buses. When its LEED certified streetcar started service, the system was lauded by local and state press for bringing an “eye-popping” edge to the city’s developing downtown area, and for being part of a larger city infrastructure plan committed to eco-friendly design and development.
Want more? Check out these reads on the challenges and rewards of streetcars:
All-American Streetcar Boom Fuels Urban Future
Tram wars! Why streetcars are back — whether you like it or not
Homepage photo courtesy of Courtesy of Portland Streetcar
Bike-Sharing Systems Cost Money, But Make Money Too
In the past decade, several midsize cities have launched campaigns to attract young professionals, and as millennials move in, they’re embracing more and varied ways to get around town. Ride-share companies like Uber and Lyft are making having your own wheels less important, even in car-reliant cities like Los Angeles, where more alternatives to public transit have been a focus for legislators and public transit advocates. And the same is true for bike-sharing programs, which have skyrocketed since the first one was introduced in Washington, D.C., nearly a decade ago. Today, there is an estimated 119 systems nationwide.
As Bill Dossett, executive director of the Twin Cities’ bike share program, Nice Ride Minnesota, said last year, “It’s no longer a novelty. To be a world-class city, you need to have a bike-share program.”
For cities still debating their benefits, here’s what to know — both the good and the bad — about building out a bike-share program.
You Have to Spend Money to Make Money
Bikes cost money, but they also bring it in. The University of Iowa found that bike commuters in 37 of the state’s counties contributed $41.5 million to the local economy through jobs and spending. Fort Worth, Texas, spent $598,000 last year on its first bike share program, and immediately made it back and then some when ridership surged 34 percent more than expected.
But reaping those benefits can come with a hefty price tag.
In New York, for example, the city council requested $12 million this year to fund an additional 2,000 more bikes for its Citi Bike program, the nation’s largest. That comes on top of the bike-share’s rocky — and expensive — start, which was delayed after flooding from 2012’s Superstorm Sandy resulted in $10 million in damages to bike equipment.
And with more bikes comes the need for more bike lanes. To fund them, some cities have turned to tax increases, like in Portland, Ore., where voters recently agreed to a temporary 10-cent gas tax that would raise $64 million over four years, 44 percent of which is earmarked for more bike lanes and safety improvements.
Different Cities Require Different Approaches
There’s no debating that bike shares have been a smash, with the number of bike-share rides exploding from 2.3 million in 2011 to 28 million last year, according to the National Association of City Transportation Officials.
But not every system has been successful. Just this year, Pronto in Seattle shut down operations in March after posting poor ridership numbers. The culprits: Hilly terrain, inclement weather, a mandatory helmet law and few bike lanes in the congested downtown area. (The city is giving bike shares another whirl, however, recently announcing it will see two new companies launch operations later this year.)
L.A., too, is similarly struggling with low ridership compared to other cities, according to an analysis by the Los Angeles Times. In that instance, city officials limited the bike-share system to downtown blocks, making the program out of reach for many who live in L.A.’s sprawling outskirts. Still, officials defend the nascent program. “We’re not New York, we’re not Chicago,” Laura Cornejo, a Metro deputy executive officer told the newspaper. “For every city, you need to look at what the culture is, what the infrastructure is, and what the political and community dynamic is.”
Address Gentrification Controversies Head-On
But not everyone loves the bike-share craze. In some neighborhoods, activists and legislators worry that the bike racks add to congestion and help usher in gentrification.
After New York’s CitiBike program proposed an expansion of bike stations last year in Harlem, a historically black and Latino neighborhood, community leaders called the initiative a “gateway to gentrification” and harmful to local businesses and food trucks.
But research has shown that investing in bike infrastructure and bike shares are actually good for neighborhoods and property value.
In 2013, officials in Indianapolis invested $63 million in grants and private funding to build the Cultural Trail, eight miles of interconnected bike and pedestrian pathways. Two years later, Indiana University’s Public Policy Institute found that properties within 500 feet of the trail increased in value 148 percent, to $1 billion.
“As with anything, some of the pushback is within the community itself, and a lot of it is due to misunderstanding or misinformation,” Jolie Lemoine, president of the board of directors for New Orleans’s Bike Easy program, tells NationSwell. “People think that it will put small businesses out of business, but it’s just not true.”
For Bike Easy, which is currently in the testing phase in parts of New Orleans’s popular tourism areas, such as the French Quarter, the message has been to include the community in deciding where bike docks will go and how they will be used.
“We want people to have the opportunity to get bikes without owning one, so that they can see this is an effective system,” Lemoine says. “It can make areas of town more valuable to residents. I think [the challenge is] changing sentiments, attitudes and desires of what we want our city to offer us.”
Want more? Check out these reads on the challenges and rewards of bike shares:
“Bikes Aren’t Just Good for You, They’re Good for the Economy, Too,” Fast Company
“Have You Heard About That Awesome New Bike-Share Diet?” Next City
“What Keeps Bike Share White,” CityLab
Homepage photo courtesy of Los Angeles Metro Bike Share
Las Vegas’s First Family Gambles on Downtown, Indoor Agriculture Gets a Boost and More
Meet the Goodmans: Las Vegas’ Flamboyant Political Family, Governing
Did you know the Strip — with its high-rolling casinos and debauched dance clubs — isn’t actually within Las Vegas’s city limits? It’s technically on Clark County’s turf. The timeworn battle between city and county is playing out in the Nevada desert, as a husband-and-wife pair who’ve held the mayor’s office for a collective 17 years try to remake the city’s downtown, gambling their future on a performing arts center, a med school and a pro sports team.
High-Rise Greens, The New Yorker
In 2003, Ed Harwood, a 66-year-old inventor from Ithaca, N.Y., sketched out designs for a seemingly impossible idea: a compact vertical farm, where produce could grow without any soil, sunlight or more water than a fine mist. Today, his grow tower has been perfected and adopted by AeroFarms, a company in Newark, N.J., whose indoor agriculture aims to compete with California’s kale, bok choi and arugula farmers.
Did Free College Save This City? Christian Science Monitor
For every graduate of the Kalamazoo, Mich., school system — rich or poor — a group of anonymous donors has guaranteed scholarships to cover the cost of college tuition. The 11-year-old educational experiment, known as Kalamazoo Promise, has revived the district public schools and fostered a college-going culture in this frozen Rust Belt city that’s trying to transition to the digital economy.
Continue reading “Las Vegas’s First Family Gambles on Downtown, Indoor Agriculture Gets a Boost and More”
5 Cities Where Successful Wage Growth Is Happening
For several years after the 2008 market crash, the economic recovery was seen only in corporate earnings statements and consistent job reports. Family paychecks, meanwhile, didn’t keep pace. Average hourly wages rose at an anemic 2 percent from 2010 to 2014 — and that’s not accounting for inflation. Worse, US workers’ pay had lagged behind other indicators for nearly a decade, the result of bloated executive salaries, global outsourcing of jobs and capital investments in mechanization.
But in the last two years, that dynamic has begun to shift. Unemployment bottomed out at 4.6 percent last year (down from a high of 10 percent in 2009), meaning businesses needed to pay more to recruit and retain employees. Last October, wage growth hit a high of 2.8 percent nationwide.
In which cities has the average worker seen the biggest comparative bump in pay, as measured by higher wages and more work hours? (Hint, three are in blue states, two in red, and not one can claim more than a million residents.) Donald Trump’s 2016 victory in the Electoral College revealed the regional inequities, between the coast and the heartland, that divide our country. As a way to bridge those separations, NationSwell dug into the data to find out what drove better pay in these metro areas, offering five methods for the next administration to consider.
5. Albuquerque, N.M.
Population:559,121
Wage growth in 2016:5.70%
Average weekly pay:$745, up from $703
Statewide, New Mexico’s economy has struggled to make a comeback. At the end of 2015, the Land of Enchantment logged 17,300 fewer non-farm jobs than in pre-recession 2007. But after taking a years-long beating (including more than a doubling in meth overdoses), the state’s biggest city, Albuquerque, is starting to show signs of progress.
Historically, the city has relied on federal spending for a slew of jobs at Sandia National Laboratories, which focuses primarily on weapons, and Kirtland Air Force Base. If President Trump pumps money into defense, the city will likely be a prime beneficiary. But reliance on public dollars “is not a growth industry,” noted Jim Peach, a New Mexico State University economics professor, last year.
To capitalize on government investment, the city is trying to establish the high desert as a hub for science and technology companies. They’re sharing technical discoveries from the national labs (and the state university’s flagship campus) with local small businesses. And they’re also hoping to attract more semiconductor manufacturers near Intel’s chip-making facilities in Rio Rancho, a half-hour drive from downtown. The high-paying jobs in those sectors could power Albuquerque back into full recovery.
4. Minneapolis–St. Paul, Minn.
Population:711,790
Wage growth in 2016:5.97%
Average weekly pay:$998, up from $938
In February 2018, Minneapolis will play host to America’s most watched televised event: the Super Bowl, to be held at U.S. Bank Stadium. (St. Paul will host an accompanying winter carnival, featuring a gigantic ice palace, to draw spectators across the river.) The NFL’s imprimatur is just the latest sign that businesses are increasingly eyeing the Twin Cities for development opportunities. “The number one thing is that people who make decisions for business now have a much more positive view of Minneapolis, and look at us for business expansion,” said Mayor Betsy Hodges, according to the Minneapolis Star Tribune.
To prep for the crowds who’ll be streaming into town to watch football, the city is also shoring up a shopping district in the city center, which has been battered by competition from suburban malls and online retailers. At the moment, a Macy’s department store is the last remaining anchor, but a $50 million revival plan for Nicollet Mall promises to make it a “must-see destination in downtown,” said David Frank, the city’s planning and economic development director.
All that new business means more workers are making more money, thanks to a red-hot 3 percent unemployment rate and a recent change in state law. Last August, a raise in Minnesota’s minimum wage went into effect. At $9.50 an hour for large employers, the hike lands the state near the top of guaranteed minimums. And as debate over a citywide standard of $15 per hour becomes the defining issue of this year’s mayoral campaign — Mayor Hodges recently flip-flopped her position to support the wage bump — compensation seems likely to continue trending upward.
3. Charlotte, N.C.
Population:827,097
Wage growth in 2016:7.94%
Average weekly pay:$983, up from $905
If the number of new housing units rising across this Southern city is any indicator, people desperately want to move to Charlotte. At the beginning of last year, construction had begun on more than 12,300 units, and another 13,500 more were planned. The buyers? Foreign-born immigrants who’ve made a home in the New South, young millennials (including Villanova grads) who’ve found plenty of jobs to be had in Charlotte’s banking and advanced manufacturing sectors, and former exurbanites moving back to the city core.
“During the Great Recession, the sprawling developments in the exurbs ground to a halt,” Brian Leary, president of a local development firm, told Curbed. So those people moved closer to the central business district and the expanding light-rail system. “People are craving connectivity to each other and experiences, and those places that can deliver the most experiences in an accessible way can command premiums and value over time.”
Charlotte won that appeal despite the controversy over H.B. 2, the so-called “bathroom bill” that forces trans people to use facilities that match the gender on their birth certificate. The state law, which was drafted in response to a local anti-discrimination ordinance in Charlotte, led to boycotts and unknown quantities of lost revenue. A new governor could overturn the controversial legislation, which in turn could accelerate new business.
2. Nashville–Davidson, Tenn.
Population:654,610
Wage growth in 2016:10.07%
Average weekly pay:$904, up from $812
Another Southern city growing at breakneck speed, Nashville has capitalized on its reputation as a destination for creatives to attract newcomers. Seeking out the city’s robust music scene, tourists continue to stream into Nashville. For 70 months in a row, the hordes of visitors broke records for nightly hotel stays; by the end of the rush last October, Nashville set an all-time record, beating out Houston’s 59-month streak. “We have music, a cool brand, Music City Center and Opryland,” plus two convention centers, Butch Sypridon, CEO of Nashville Convention and Visitors Corp., boasted to The Tennessean.
Now that the city is expanding, officials are moving to the next checklist item they must fulfill to stay on an upward trajectory: luring high-wage employers — an important task, given that Tennessee has no statewide minimum wage. To do so, Nashville is trying to keep as many Vanderbilt alumni in town as possible, while also welcoming foreign immigrants.
The population is there to make Nashville a major economic powerhouse, if the city can attract the right firms. ”If we didn’t have 1,500 people moving to town every month, we won’t have the job growth that we’re having,” said Ralph Schulz, the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce’s CEO. “Before you had to have the jobs and the population came. That’s not the case anymore. Now it’s workforce, then jobs [follow].” If job openings outpace new residents, expect wages to rocket even higher.
1. Dover, Del.
Population:37,522
Wage Growth in 2016:14.05%
Average Weekly Pay:$764, up from $656
Perhaps the most unexpected entrant on the list, the tiny town of Dover, Delaware’s state capital and second largest city, recorded the largest percentage jump in wages in the nation. The payoff is the result of a 10-year comprehensive plan Kent County officials laid out in 2007, which emphasized attracting new companies without losing the area’s farmland and rural charm.
One of the biggest boons to Dover’s economy has been the aviation industry, anchored at Dover Air Force Base. Taking advantage of the military’s need for supplies, the state is building an Air Cargo Ramp that can accommodate large civilian carriers, about the same size as four Boeing 747 planes. The city has also been aided by expansions at several factories, including bra-producer Playtex and food giant Kraft, and a surge in entrepreneurship; in 2015, the dollars loaned to small businesses statewide shot up 156 percent.
On top of that, Dover punches above its weight in attracting some 2 million tourists annually, generating half a billion in revenue countywide. Visitors are drawn by state parks, casinos, NASCAR races and music festivals, like the 80,000-attendee Firefly. “I met a fairly new resident of Kent County a few weeks ago who lives in one of our newer housing developments,” Cindy Small, Kent County’s tourism director, told the local paper. “She mentioned that out of 30 or so homes, 28 of them have been purchased by non-Delawareans. You can bet they were visitors first. They came, they experienced; they relocated.”
It should be noted that Dover’s wages at the beginning of 2016 were, by far, lowest among the top five performers, making it all the easier to notch big gains among its small population. But the town did so even after Delaware upped the state’s minimum wage to $8.25 an hour in June 2015. Even after the change, this booming town’s average pay has continued to rise, perhaps fueled by a still relatively cheap cost of living and an influx of consumer spending.
This Southern City Is Looking to Trees as a Way to Beat the Heat
You probably don’t know this, but Louisville, Ky., is an island. Yes, you read that correctly.
Granted, Louisville is not a real island, but it’s an urban heat island — a phenomenon where a city’s center is much hotter than its surrounding areas. Due to the abundance of darkly paved areas, the heat is stored and released throughout the day and night, which prevents the area from cooling down after sunset. While this doesn’t cause pollution, it does heighten the effects.
“Cities essentially create their own climates,” urban heat expert Brian Stone Jr. explains to Politico. “And the urban heat island effect is one way to measure that. There’s a heat island effect, really, in every large city.”
With an urban core that’s 20 degrees warmer than the surrounding area, Louisville ranks as the number one heat island in the nation — resulting in higher electric bills for residents, more coal burned, disruptions in the city’s ecosystem because of hotter storm water and even death by heat. And while this designation isn’t something to be proud of, the city’s effort to reverse it is.
In 2012, there were 39 heat-related deaths, which spurred the city into action. Louisville created a tree commission to assess and revive trees that were damaged by natural disasters because it believes that it’s imperative to maintain and replace existing trees in addition to planting new trees. Plus, it has spent $115,000 on tree assessments, received $135,000 in grants to study the urban heat island (the first ever in its kind) and planted over 12,000 trees since 2011.
Louisville has also hired a director of sustainability and an urban forester to address the present and the future. Local nonprofits are also getting involved in the solution. Louisville Grows holds volunteer planting days where the group plants trees across the downtown. And the nonprofit American Forests assessed the approximate percentage of trees needed to combat the urban heat island, which stands at about 20 percent in the downtown area, but Louisville only has about eight percent, reports Politico.
“It’s really important to us that while we’re planting the trees,” Louisville Grows executive director Valerie Magnuson says. “We’re thinking in terms of a tree that’s going to be living for 100 years or much longer, and is going to carry on after we’re all gone.”
MORE: Why a New Start-Up Is Paying Customers to Save Water
Meet the Eighth Grader Who Designs Subway Systems
What do most of us think of when traveling through a city? Maybe it’s congestion, pollution and headaches. And while some urban planners are looking for ways to improve life on the streets, perhaps it’s time to take a look at what’s happening underground.
That’s exactly what one designer started doing. The interesting part? He isn’t even in high school, yet he’s already designing transit systems for cities that don’t have underground public transportation.
What started as a simple hobby for eighth grader Ivan Specht has now turned into a brand (Metro-ology) with a website, posters and t-shirt designs.
His first subway design was for Austin, Texas and was given as a Father’s Day present to his dad. From there, inspiration took off and Specht produced 10 more, including plans for San Antonio and New Orleans.
So, how did an eighth grader became an infrastructure prodigy? According to Specht, it’s just always been a passion.
“Ever since I was about five, I have been fascinated by mass transit systems — especially that of New York City, which is where I now live,” Specht tells Fast Co. Exist. “[My Dad] really liked the gift. So much so he suggested I turn it into a summer project and business, which is exactly what I have done.”
To create each design, Specht uses Google Maps Maker. No detail is left unnoticed, and his designs are as intricate as that of the New York City subway system. In addition, much of his inspiration comes from Harry Beck’s London Underground map.
“Usually, I try to concentrate the lines in the city centers. I then re-draw the map in Photoshop, using 45-degree angles, which I think make the maps look much cleaner and more graphically pleasing. Lastly, I add a legend, as well as reference points like highways and rivers,” Specht explains to Fast Co. Exist.
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Taking a look at the designs, it’s clear that Sprecht’s transit plans have the potential to be turned into reality. Which city will be the first to call him?
MORE: These Solar-Powered Roads Transmit Helpful Information onto Your Windshield
Watch: How YouthBuild Creates Better Communities and Stronger Leaders
YouthBuild provides unemployed young Americans ages 16 to 24 with opportunities to pursue their education, serve their communities, and learn job skills. Since Dorothy Stoneman, founder and CEO of YouthBuild USA, started the first YouthBuild program in East Harlem in 1978, the movement has spread across the country, with tens of thousands of YouthBuild students building affordable housing and becoming leaders in their communities.
In a Google Hangout On Air with NationSwell, Stoneman discusses her reason for starting YouthBuild, while Jamiel Alexander, YouthBuild alumni council president, and Filomena Chavez from the Just-A-Start YouthBuild program in Cambridge, Mass. talks about the way service has shaped their lives.
“Your neighbors see you building in the same neighborhood where they used to see you standing idle. Now you’ve got a hard hat, now you’ve got a book bag, now you’ve built a house, and you can tell your children, ‘I built that house,'” Stoneman says of the pride that YouthBuild students feel.
Since 1994, when federal money for YouthBuild first went into local communities, the program has put up 28,000 units of affordable housing in 273 communities across the country.
“Self, family, then community,” Alexander says of the way he worked to get on a better path before raising a family and building a better society. “You have to take care of yourself first. You have to heal.”
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People in low income communities should have the opportunity to improve their own communities, Stoneman says, adding “that’s an energy that needs to be unleashed, and AmeriCorps does have a priority on including low income people in giving service in their own communities.”
YouthBuild is one of the organizations doing the most to enhance the culture of service in America, a topic the New York Times recently explored in an editorial previewing the 20th anniversary of AmeriCorps. And General Stanley McChrystal is just one of a number of leaders who has outlined the importance of giving all young Americans the opportunity to serve.
Click the Take Action button to learn how you can join NationSwell and The Franklin Project to spread the word on service year opportunities, and make sure to tweet thoughts or questions with the #serviceyear hashtag.
NationSwell is featuring various service opportunities in a series of live Google Hangouts On Air. Next month, we’ll be talking with CityYear, a nonprofit that partners with public schools to provide targeted student interventions.
How Can an Old Smartphone Be Used to Make a City Better?
Have you ever been annoyed by the amount of people fighting for position on a city sidewalk only to turn the corner and find the next block over all but deserted? Ever thought that your old smartphone could be used in some other capacity? These may seem like totally separate problems, but Alex Winter has one unique solution to solve both.
His new startup, Placemeter, has found a unique yet incredibly simple way to monitor street activity and turn it into data that cities and businesses can use — all the while putting discarded smartphones to use.
Here’s what happens: City dwellers send Placemeter information about where they live and what their view consists of. The company sends back a window mounting smartphone kit, which will allow them to use its camera to monitor street activity. The movement is then quantified using a computer program that identifies individual bodies and tracks their actions, as shown in this video. Even better? In exchange, folks providing a view get up to $50 per month for an asset that previously paid nothing, according to City Lab.
As great as Placemeter is for those with a good street view, it is even better for an urban area as a whole. That’s because the images captured through the smartphones, over time, yields valuable data for city officials. Foot and vehicle traffic patterns, as well as the use of benches and other public amenities, can all be tracked through Placemeter and used to improve everyday life.
“Measuring data about how the city moves in real time, being able to make predictions on that, is definitely a good way to help cities work better,” Winter told City Lab.
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The data is also very valuable to retailers, helping them assess what might be the best spot for a new store. Such data has been long sought after, but until now, there had not been a simple, widespread way to collect it.
For many, with this advancement comes the concern of privacy — both for those being observed on the street and those with a smartphone. Placemeter has emphasized its commitment to privacy, though, and says the device’s camera doesn’t monitor anything inside a host’s home. Additionally, a computer, not a human, analyzes all the images of the street, and once the useful data is captured, the footage is erased.
Although it’s only in New York for now, the company wants to expand to other U.S. cities.
Thanks to Placemeter, says Winter, “cities and citizens [can] collaborate to make the city better.”And who wouldn’t want that?
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With Parking Spaces Sitting Vacant, Atlanta Has a Bold Plan to Merge Communities With Transit
Everyone who lives near a city knows all too well how much location – specifically, proximity to the commuter rail — matters. The shorter the drive is to the station, the better. And the ability to walk there trumps just about everything.
Such convenience is about to come to thousands in Atlanta. That city’s metro system MARTA has started making real estate deals to build housing to unused transit parking lots. MARTA plans to turn the space at the King Memorial, Edgewood, and Edgewood/Chandler Park stations into combination residential and retail developments.
“People have been looking at these parking lots for decades wondering why they were just sitting there,” Amanda Rhein, senior director of transit-oriented development at MARTA, told City Lab.
Now, that is finally changing — and it’s not only helping commuters, but also the railroad itself. Without state funding, MARTA’s bottom line is very easily impacted by the ups and downs of the economy. So, when Keith Parker took over the agency in 2012, he decided that a bold project like this is what was required to keep it competitive. The development will not only produce revenue from all the train riders, but also with each unit sold, will raise money for the transit system that it can use for improvements.
And so far, Parker’s decision is looking like a good one. MARTA has successfully leased land to developers for mixed-use buildings that are focused on the adjacent transit opportunities, including a project on a four-acre unused parking lot that features 13,000 square feet of retails space and 386 housing units.
The boon does not only belong to the railroads, though; it is the entire community’s as these projects could decrease traffic on the roads. And on top of that, there is more to the new spaces then one might think. Beyond all the great new housing and shops, each development will also feature a public park as well as have at least 20 percent of the units dedicated to affordable housing.
While construction has yet to start, there’s already hope for more in the future since this model is good for both the city of Atlanta, its citizens and the transit system itself.
“We’re going to make the stations themselves and the surrounding areas more pleasant and more easily accessible, and we’ll be providing amenities to our riders and to the surrounding community. So I think people will realize that and give MARTA a chance,” says Rhein.
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