Streetbeat, Vol. VIII
Accessible progressive street design, sustainable last miles and the peripheral recovery.
Hallo!
Welcome to this newsletter. (Now on Substack!)
It's where I (John Surico) — seasoned journalist, urban planning researcher & coffee drinker — share thoughts & writing each month on cities & their contents: streets, people, energy, cultures, food, form, etc. Thanks for being here, and hope you enjoy your time!
Before getting into it, I want to start this newsletter off by making a special shout-out to my partner-in-crime Angela.
Not only because this month marks seven years we’ve been together (which we celebrated in the lovely pedestrianized Scouse capital of Liverpool, seen above), but because Angela never likes talking about her work! (A public presence is a source of horror for her.) And recently, someone else did it for her: Forbes. Ange is fascinated in using our supply chains that we rely on in modern life to tell larger stories of how people and products move, which is what she was studying at Oxford. In an interview with colleague and director Abbie Harper, she talks all about their work on Netflix’s (Emmy-nominated) series Rotten. Go check it out!
Now that I’ve sufficiently met her embarrassment quota for the week/month, time to talk cities.
Right before lockdown, I was working on this story for Bloomberg CityLab about how progressive street designs still have an accessibility problem. I had met activists at events in London, and was taken aback by issues raised that I — normative user here! — had taken for granted as an abled cyclist and walker. (Even coming from someone who had covered accessibility in NYC subways, and also grew up with a disabled parent.) I’m glad that the piece could finally go up, especially since many of the COVID-19-era interventions since are lacking in this regard. (Although not what I saw above in Liverpool, where the city literally put down concrete to level the platform.)
The readers’ response was to be expected: some said many disabled individuals would prefer to cycle, if given the opportunity (agreed! I’ve been to the Netherlands, too! But that’s not everyone); and others thought I didn’t focus enough on the real culprit sucking up space: cars (they clearly have not met me). But I think the key takeaway was an institutional one: planners and designers often do not share these lived experiences, which influences what they put into practice. And that’s okay to admit! Greater awareness, better resources for outreach and new tech could help solve what is ultimately a series of trade-offs between impacted parties. Incrementalism towards a more inclusive future — which, yes, totally means reducing car space — should be something we can all get behind.
Announcement from academia!
As of this month, I’ve officially handed in my dissertation to the master’s program(me) at UCL, thus concluding this one-year front-row rollercoaster ride. As the title implies, I looked at trips taken to suburban rail stations, like the one I grew up near — short distances often done by car, producing enough carbon emissions to offset any green benefit you get from taking the train itself. (It gets sadder from here on out, don’t worry.) I’ll be writing more about what I found in the weeks to come.
In the meantime, I’ve uploaded all of my planning essays for class on ResearchGate and Academia.edu, which has led me to find out that there are a lot of other Surico’s out there producing scientific research that I don’t understand, but am very inspired by! Anyway, my last essay is on building resilient transport systems in Latin America, a region particularly vulnerable to the changing climate. Get ready for some good Harvard style.
Now that we’re both finished with our program(mes), Ange and I will be kickin’ it in London for the next few months before heading back to NYC. So more writing and research on streets, space and the COVID-19 recovery in cities to come. Also, if any editors are reading this: I’m available!
Quick little promo: I’ve been filming with Emmett Adler and his crew for his documentary “End of the Line,” which is all about public transit in America, for almost three years now. They first started trailing me when I was covering the L train shutdown for VICE, and over time, the documentary, which raised $25k on Kickstarter, ballooned into something much larger (and more existential) about transit and infrastructure as public goods.
In recent weeks, the production has come across the pond to follow this conversation to London, which is often seen as New York’s transit rival (or ideal?). Here’s a sneak peek of those shoots, as we spoke with riders and experts about the key steps the capital city took to create one of the world’s most reliable transport networks.
One more: I’ve been inspired by the work we’re putting out at Oxford Urbanists, where we receive contributions from practitioners all over the world. This last month saw two that I wanted to highlight.
The first is a post-COVID-19 future essay about how our neighborhoods, using the mutual aid model as precedence, can use tech to be smarter and healthier in the years ahead. And the second is a personal piece on a year of crises in Beirut. If you have work you want to share, pitch us!
To conclude here, I wanted to share a few parting thoughts I’ve had on a similarity I’m seeing between New York and London, my two homes.
New York is a city in constant argument with itself, and the latest to engulf it is whether the city is ‘dying’ because folks (primarily wealthier) are leaving. (It’s gotten so trite at this point, so I won’t add beyond what I said in Vol. III.) But the statistics are weaving a much different tale. While Manhattan retail activity is still basically non-existent, it’s the outer borough corridors — Jamaica, Queens; Fordham Road, in the Bronx — that are roaring back. Where people had less resources to leave, or shifted to working (and staying) locally, their local economies have proven to be remarkably resilient. And these were the areas that were growing before the pandemic hit, too.
London is no different.
I took this photo above a few weeks ago mid-day at Bank Junction, which was one of the busiest, people-wise, in London. (Nine streets converge here.) The Square Mile, home to central London’s big banks and offices, is still relatively quiet, and footfall is nowhere near normal. But in the outer boroughs, Centre for London found that grocery spending, for example, has returned or even surpassed pre-COVID levels. The shops, albeit in a masked-up slo-mo reality, are doing alright. (Restaurants, however, are outliers here.) The commercial strips near me in Brixton are thronged with people, day in and day out. It would appear as if the pandemic didn’t even happen.
I’ve long been an advocate for decentralizing city policy, which, for too long, has focused on a singular point for economic activity. It congests transportation, as everyone pours into the center at the same time; it’s inequitable, as local investment is often overlooked; and it’s not representative: most urban populations do not live in the center, for a variety of reasons. (Unaffordability, of course, being a big one.) Clearly, this model was also insanely ill-prepared to deal with disruption.
The COVID-19 crisis has returned that lenses to the local; it reminded us why the vitality of our own neighborhood is, perhaps, the most impactful on our lives. If working from home (at least a few days a week) becomes normalized and office leases go unsigned for some time, we have to start thinking about that as a permanent reality — one where many of our days and dollars are mostly spent within a five-block radius. What does our city look like then? In that way, these hollowed-out global centers (which, I’m sure, is not just a New York or London problem) are visual reminders of where, and how, our attention needs to change.
That’s it for this month’s rendition. See you in September!
Until then, some food for thought:
McDonald’s tests a ‘Bike-In’ concept in Germany (Twitter)
There is a housing project standing now where the house in which we grew up once stood, and one of those stunted city trees is snarling where our doorway used to be. This is on the rehabilitated side of the avenue. The other side of the avenue — for progress takes time — has not been rehabilitated yet and it looks exactly as it looked in the days when we sat with our noses pressed against the windowpane, longing to be allowed to go "across the street." - James Baldwin (1960)