Before COVID, the borough of Chelsea and Kensington teamed up with London’s Design Museum to redesign crosswalks in an effort to revamp the local high street. (Source: Author)
“Ghost towns.” Second waves. Climate crisis. Social isolation. Historic downturn.
I don’t know about you, but it’s getting harder and harder for me to keep up with the conversations around cities at what feels like an incredibly pivotal time for the world. Perhaps that’s stemming from the unprecedented anxiety most Americans are feeling with less than a week left until a do-or-die election. (WARNING: this newsletter may double as stress-writing.) Or maybe it’s the second wave of coronavirus ravaging my temporary home in the United Kingdom, along with the rest of Europe, after a calmer summer. Or the worldwide economic slump we’ve entered that seems poised to threaten progress on key issues—namely the green transition—for years to come.
Yes, things are bad. But what first attracted me to writing about urbanism as a journalist in the first place is the astounding tenacity cities have for tackling problems head-on, even when everything else seems to falter. There is a ‘here and now’ that is remarkably refreshing in this current moment of immense existential dread. Cities, by nature, don’t have time to wait; for better or for worse, they’re a place of action. Which, right now, seems like a wake-up call.
In that spirit, here’s the latest:
Green space after COVID-19
Part of the the Parkland Walk runs along a converted abandoned rail in North London (see the platforms?), turning this strip of green into a connective corridor linking several neighbourhoods. (Source: Author)
There has been endless extolling of the virtues of green space during these last few months. I myself am guilty on multiple counts. But the tougher part of the equation is the outcome—so, what kind of green spaces should we be funding? What should development look like in a post-COVID world? What’s actually effective?
I do a lot of editorial work with the PEAK Urban initiative at the University of Oxford, an international team conducting research on city policy and practice across five separate continents. A few months ago, I was shown a number of pre-pandemic studies done by PEAK researchers in the United Kingdom, Colombia and Japan into green spaces and how we use them. And the public health implications were startling.
In Medellín and Cali, researchers found that access to parks correlated with risk of cardiovascular diseases (a key comorbidity); basically: the closer you were to a park, the healthier you were. In this light, the smallest of parks spurn significance. In London, both public and private green spaces—community allotments; personal gardens; “active” parks; etc.—made a notable difference on health outcomes, a lesson for planners and developers in the future. And in Tokyo, cellphone data could give us new insights into our usage patterns, and how many people parks are reaching.
In a crisis of inequity, proximity and quality can help fill the gap—the gist of my new piece for the recently launched CityMonitor (FKA CityMetric) on these findings.
Motocracy
The urban motorcycling craze was more than apparent than ever in Athens. (Source: Author)
Last month’s edition of this newsletter confronted the widespread disruption that rapid behavioral shifts and technological leaps are having on our streets. Namely: SUVs. The outsized four-wheel drives are ballooning in usage, which is reviving debates we haven’t had since the Hummer days about emissions and traffic safety in urban areas. Berlin wants to ban them. France is going to start charging them by weight. And yet still, they’re getting bigger and more popular.
But I think we must also have a frank conversation about motorcycles. They’re starkly different than SUVs in several key ways—they take up less space; they emit less (at least with carbon and from tire wear); and due to their cheap price, they play a much more crucial role in informal, or unlicensed, transport, particularly in Latin America and Asia. But that doesn’t detract from issues they share with SUVs in regards to noise and air pollution, as well as safety.
So why now? Because the great urban motorcycling boom is underway. You may have noticed yourself: in cities everywhere right now, the roars of two-wheeled engines are landing on streets more and more. That’s for a variety of reasons, including the attraction of socially distanced rides, rising congestion, cheap gas, and the increasing permanence of delivery for everything we want or need.
There are certainly opportunities for positive change (the e-revolution is coming), but, also very real challenges that cities need to confront. I reported on the burgeoning dynamic this month for Bloomberg CityLab.
Thank you anonymous person!
Speaking of CityLab: I want to leave space to dedicate a special shout-out to the stranger (friend?) who shortlisted my August feature on shared spaces’ accessibility issue for an Active Travel Media Award. The honors, started by the University of Westminster’s Active Travel Academy, go to works that highlight the issues facing active travel (walking and cycling) in the United Kingdom and elsewhere. My piece sits alongside some esteemed features on key equity issues—like the perceived safety of women on bikes, and the growing voice of Black women in cycling—that often go overlooked. Which is why coverage is more important than ever.
Usually there’d be a big party, but Zoom it is on November 26th. The entire shortlist, which is really just a good reading list for those interested, can be found here.
The Great Streets… Slowdown
New wands up on Kensington High Street, in a borough notorious for blocking cycling efforts. (Source: Author)
I briefly wanted to mention what appears to be a new chapter in the COVID-19 discussion around streets and how we use them. A few months ago, one planner called what was happening the “Great Reclamation”: towns and cities were reclaiming street space at unprecedented speeds, flipping parking spaces into outdoor dining, constructing pop-up cycle lanes, and widening pavements to allow for social distancing. (I compiled a good chunk of them for an EU research initiative then.) It seemed like an epiphany for active travel advocates, who have long been calling for us to rethink the way our streets work for us. And COVID-19, which discouraged public transit and brought us all outdoors— walking, cycling, etc. —more, provided cities with the justification. For many, it was a silver lining amongst doomscrolling.
Fast forward to now. Let’s call what we’re seeing a slowdown of sorts. The backlash against said actions has finally caught up, with lawsuits and counter-protests threatening to halt or peel back what was put in place in that flurry of activity known as Spring 2020. In London, a handful of low-traffic neighbourhood schemes have been taken out by councils, after calls that the through-traffic regulations are causing more traffic. (Unsurprisingly, the traffic has not gone anywhere.) In Athens, the “Great Walk” pedestrian mall connecting historical sites proposed by the mayor—and discussed in this newsletter as a smart way to boost tourism—has been diluted in scope. (I witnessed firsthand the bits and bobs left behind.) In Berlin, far-right politicians and the auto industry have teamed up to oppose the city’s new pop-up cycle lanes. And in New York, busways promised this last summer have either been pared down or delayed indefinitely, after businesses along routes floated concerns.
It was only a matter of time, really, before the reality of city planning set in. Unless you have an unabashed push from the top—Anne Hidalgo in Paris or Claudia López Hernández in Bogotá, both female mayors who cycle, are probably the best examples right now—change takes time. (Although I’ve been appreciating Shabazz Stuart of bike-parking start-up Oonee constantly reminding us on Twitter that the core of the New York City subway was built in a few years.) What, I think, these scenario-specific pushbacks cannot stop is modal shift. For example, even with a haphazard cycle-lane rollout in pandemic-recovering New York, cycling has reached historic levels there, particularly amongst women. London is seeing record numbers as well. And despite groups’ best efforts, they’re not going to halt skyrocketing e-bike or e-scooter sales worldwide, which continue to grow more accessible and affordable.
That’s because modal shifts—transport planning lingo for changes in the ways we take trips—come from incremental changes, which can leap forward if seismic events happen, creating a feedback loop. Cycling and micro-mobility was steadily rising in cities before COVID. Then the pandemic (massive disruptor!) sped up initiatives and reasons to ride, which adds even more cycling and micro-mobility to streets, hastening initial uptake. Add in the quickening pace of trip redistribution—which I’ll go into more next month—that is grounding our trips more locally for the foreseeable future, and, I’d say, with some permanence. And voilà: modal shifts persist, regardless of slowdown. (With one key exception: public transit ridership.)
This is the same reaction I had to Democratic presidential nominee Joseph R. Biden’s comments over the oil and gas industry transitioning: there are larger forces at play right now (i.e. markets, shifting public opinion) that are difficult to stop by suing or screaming. Which, of course, doesn’t stop the suing or screaming.
Back in the classroom!
Going to conclude with some *good news*: this newsletter is basically becoming a course at New York University! I’m returning to teach at my alma mater in the spring, with a new class I’ve created called “Advanced Reporting: The City.” (Kudos to Ange for the name.) It’ll aim to teach prospective journalists how to write and report on the biggest issues facing cities in the coming years, from transportation and the climate crisis to public health and housing. And I couldn’t be more thrilled.
But reader, I need your help. That tinge of excitement is also met with nerve, since from what I’m aware of, this is the first journalism-urban planning hybrid class to ever exist, at least at NYU. So I’m crowdsourcing syllabus suggestions: what topics do you think should be covered? And what are some good texts (books, articles, etc.) out there that students should be reading? If you have any ideas, comment here on Substack or message me on Twitter!
That’s all, folks.
If you’re a seasoned reader, hopefully I see you here next month. If you’re a newcomer, please share with your friends, family and colleagues. (Only if you enjoyed this experience, of course—coming soon in VR!) And for both young and old, I encourage you to donate to one of my all-time favorite museums, which could really use it.
Now, some food for thought:
Photo of the month:
The Seibu Railway recently used ukiyo-e, a form of Japanese art popular in the 18th and 19th century, to teach etiquette on the trains in Japan. (Source: Author, as seen at The Victoria & Albert Museum)
Quote of the month:
Here is a short dispatch from the world of wages at $13 an hour or thereabouts. In New York, that world could easily fill its own borough. Its gatekeepers met people trying to gain entry at a hiring fair for new stores in the George Washington Bridge Bus Station, at 179th Street in Manhattan, on Wednesday.
- The New York Times’ Jim Dwyer, who passed away this month. Jim wrote the “About New York” column, a must-read for anyone who loves a city’s energy.