Doubling of pedestrian area in central Athens in a bid to “liberate public space,” seen on a trip there this month. Outside frame left Hadrian’s Arch and the Olympieion.
Merhaba!
Welcome to this newsletter.
It's where I (John Surico) — seasoned journalist, urban planning researcher & coffee drinker — share perspectives each month on cities, and how they’re changing.
Here’s the latest:
But first, an event alert!
The stunning Carnegie-era New York Public Library branch at Seward Park, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side. Before the pandemic, the city’s branch systems had embarked on the most extensive renovation period in their history.
Since June, I’ve been remotely compiling a new policy brief for Center for an Urban Future on New York’s capital dollars in the age of pandemic. It tries to answer a simple question: how can we make sure the city is building back better — and smarter — when our dollars are limited? It holds a keen eye towards libraries and cultural organizations, which entered the pandemic with record attendance and investment and came out of it in a fiscal hole (with perhaps a newfound societal recognition of their value).
As we near publication, CUF is hosting a panel on 10/08 at 10am EST with some great voices on the issue. (RSVP here.) Tune in if this is a topic that interests you!
Disruptors and pathways
’Disruptors’ can threaten a city’s quest to carbon neutrality. Think Uber, Amazon or delivery apps. Scooters (like these, seen all over Athens) are a good example: the apps, fueled by cheap gas and congestion, have created a scenario where motos — which emit considerable noise and air pollution — are reigning supreme. More on this next month!
I lose a part of my soul when I say the word ‘disruption’ but we’re undoubtedly in a time when breakneck spurts of change will continue to spell out drastic consequences for our streets and communities. One that caught my eye this last month is the rise of the SUV. Sales of larger-sized vehicles have skyrocketed — now, more than two out of every three vehicles sold in the US are considered ‘light trucks,’ and similar trends are being seen across Europe and Asia. What does that mean for cities?
Two things. First up: the climate. As the Guardian reported, SUVs were the second leading contributor to carbon emissions over the last decade, right below power and even above the much-maligned air travel. Compared to sedans, they’re worse on gas and rip up tar, spouting out even more pollution. (Electric SUVs, while certainly better, have their own share of embodied energy, or the carbon that goes into making the car itself. Sorry, California.) So a substantial increase in SUVs on our streets is threatening cities’ larger climate goals.
And secondly: safety. It doesn’t take much to understand why bigger cars on the streets lead to more cyclist and pedestrian fatalities. If we’re striving for Vision Zero — a world with no deaths from cars — then we need to talk about SUVs. And if we’re striving to get more people walking and cycling — a needed step-change to achieve carbon neutrality — then… we need to talk about SUVS.
On that note: over the next few weeks, I’ll be tagging on to the SUMP-PLUS project, an EU-funded research initiative that helps five cities figure out pathways to their carbon-zero targets, primarily through transport. I’m on the Greater Manchester beat, where the Northern Powerhouse capital has marked 2038 on the calendar. I’ll be looking at the barriers the city must overcome to get there. More soon on the findings!
Election note: a brief history of voter suppression
Even though this doesn’t fit the urbanist bill of this newsletter, the most important election of Americans’ lifetime (I’d say) is coming up — and so information is vital.
For my debut piece in HUCK Magazine, I set aside the city beat and explored the long fraught history of what is an undoubtedly American tradition: voter suppression. In turn, I learned a whole bunch, like the racial blind spot of the suffragist movement and the Northern origins of the term ‘Jim Crow.’ It put into context what’s happening now — and more importantly, what can be done.
Top solution? Vote like your life depends on it.
How we do save restaurants?
Shout-out to South London’s Umana Yana!
And finally…
I’ve been thinking a lot lately (because I always am) about eateries, which, of course, play such a social role in our cities, but also, employ countless — and a growing number of — people. In an era of dying retail, food-oriented services have come to define our streetscapes in a remarkable way; i.e. food halls are the new strip malls. And that’s due to a multitude of reasons: their experiential nature in the social media age; our changing palettes; a big boost from delivery apps; etc. But also, albeit risky endeavors, they’re one of the last few remaining ways to reliably make rent.
But that’s where the problem lies: COVID has laid bare just how fragile eateries financially are. In London, the new 10pm-close rule is being decried as a severe blow to the industry. In Athens, where I just returned from, we spoke with restaurants owners who were down 60 percent in revenue and weren’t sure what was going to happen this winter, when the already-non-existent scraps of tourism disappear. And in New York, where I’m from, nine out of ten (!) can’t pay rent in full.
Of course, I’ve been heartened by attempts to replace indoor captivity with outdoor creativity. London has opened up numerous town centres for al fresco. New York just made hundreds of miles of parking-turned-terraces permanent. And Athens is inherently open-air. (Plenty of other examples worldwide, too.)
But I’m struck by what we’re trying to reassemble here. The rent burden on restaurants in cities before COVID was deeply problematic. Sure, you can close the streets to cars and allow some safe indoor dining! But by pushing a return to pre-COVID customer levels, we’re happily ignoring the inconvenient truth that outside of a community-run GoFundMe page, restaurants have long been left to fend for themselves against increasingly unaffordable demands.
Here’s a telling anecdote: a family friend owned a great trattoria in Greenwich Village for years, and was told overnight that their rent was jumping from $5,000 to $15,000 a month. Because commercial businesses in New York lack the same rental rights as residents, the friend was forced to pack up shop. (What replaced it? A Michelin-starred spot where everything on the menu is quadruple the price.) That same story plays out again and again in cities everywhere.
Policies like the UK’s Eat Out to Help Out in August, which incentivized dining in, do little to address the larger issue at hand: that the restaurant industry has long existed on a knife’s edge. So in addition to short-term fixes, like winter heat lamps and a few moratoriums on fines, cities need to consider more systemic changes — like commercial rent relief, arbitration or rent control — that finally recognize (and protect) the businesses that make up the core of their street-level economies in 2020, especially now that mainstay offices are in question. Or else they really could run the risk of collapse, which would have ripple effects across urban areas.
What came before COVID wasn’t working. Let’s not bring it back.
Photo booth:
Ange and I celebrated Car-Free Day in London by turning the parking spot outside our flat into a parklet. This took some street chalk and maybe 5 minutes. Neighbours (at least most of them) rejoiced.
Quote of the month:
“Up close the city constitutes an oppressive series of staircases, but from a distance it inspires fantasies of wealth and power so profound that even our communists are temporarily rendered speechless.” - David Sedaris
See you next month!
So refreshing to read well written, intelligent journalism and know that I'm with you in spirit, but not in person. You mean the world to me! Love, Michele