This newsletter was a New Year’s goal of sorts. I had always wanted to write a monthly missive, and midway through an urban planning degree in a different country seemed like a good time to start. Little did I know then that it’d unfold during the most consequential year for cities in our lifetime—one that cast doubt over the very essence of urban life for a lot of people.
Our cities are changing, in dramatic and miraculous ways. I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times now, but Covid just sped it up. Inequities in our livelihoods persisted before stay-at-homers clapped for ‘frontline workers.’ Gigs were heading remote (remember WeWork?). Our mobilities were leaning local, with Amazon and delivery apps encroaching further into our lives. And mom & pop shops have been hurting for years. We’re living through the Great Disorientation, sure, but with ingredients that preceded this pandemic.
That should give us resolute: that our cities aren’t dying, but rather, transforming. Into what remains to be seen, but if you’ve read this newsletter, there are reasons to be hopeful that it won’t all be shit. Perhaps the exodus of wealthy or temporary residents will pop the insane real estate bubble that was consuming our cities’ housing supply. Maybe the elevation of mutual aid will give us effective models for civic engagement. And—who knows—maybe migration to smaller, mid-sized cities that have long been starved of talent and dollars isn’t all that bad? (Just maybe!)
I don’t want to understate the fact that 2020 was a year of immense tragedy. I’m not alone, I’m sure, in knowing the names of those dead from the virus, jobless from the virus, or reeling in some way from the virus. As my colleague Dr. Antonella Radicchi put it to me a few months ago, the streets of cities grew quiet, but for reasons of grief and pain. What cities must strive for, as they brace for more waves and mass vaccination, is that they come out the other side louder but stronger than before.
And now, that newsletter:
Thinking about trips
Paralleling my UK visa, my work winded down on a few projects this month. One of them was with SUMP-PLUS, an EU-led research initiative that helps cities improve their sustainable urban mobility plans (SUMPs). (Not the best acronyms in this field, folks.) I was tasked with Greater Manchester, a capital of the Industrial Revolution, and worked with their great transport team to map out pathways to zero transport emissions by 2040. The end result is not yet publicly available, but I will say that a big focus was on trip redistribution.
Trip redistribution is essentially thinking of a metropolitan area’s transport as a network of trips that we all take—for work, leisure, eduction, etc. If we’re aiming for zero transport emissions, then ideally we’d want less trips overall, and less by car. So how do you do that? Well, trip redistribution is already happening in front of our very eyes. Take online grocery shopping, for example. In the past, an entire street’s worth of residents would have gone to a supermarket individually—by car, foot or another mode—creating multiple trips. But now, a truck is bringing groceries to their doorsteps, cancelling out some of those trips (and reducing traffic, one would think).
The average person is making less trips than they did 20 years ago. Even before Covid, we were shopping online, streaming instead of going to the movies, and digitally domesticating more and more activities. So how do we keep promoting less? We can bring schools, health facilities, offices and other amenities closer to people, for one, and encourage land use and urban design to follow suit. Make areas more walk- and cycle-friendly. Revitalize main streets. And equalize community offerings. This, to me, is the core of the ‘15-minute city’ idea (having everything you need within a 15-minute walk or cycle) that has gotten so much buzz. The key is making that work for everyone.
Boot-edge-edge
Speaking of buzz: policy nerds broke out into a debate very uniquely suited for them when former South Bend, IN mayor Pete Buttigieg was nominated by President-Elect Joe Biden to lead the U.S. Department of Transportation this month. Urbanists have known “Mayor Pete” for some time; the Hoosier wunderkind made a name for himself amongst the TED Talk class for being a whip-smart young leader who embraced local innovation. Say what you will about Pete (and believe me, there’s plenty), I’m of the belief that his nomination could actually be a really big deal for America’s infrastructure. And I made the case as to why in this debut piece for Insider.
(Now that I’m getting resettled in NY, I’ll have much more to say about the $4 billion the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could receive in the new federal ‘stimulus’ bill—and the $8 billion more it still needs—next month.)
Cycling, cycling, cycling
I should’ve mentioned earlier, but Angela & I left the United Kingdom this month and are now stateside. (Reporting live from Nassau County, my native land.) As a local elected described it, we’re going from the Big Smoke to the Big Apple. We had a wondrous 15 months (given *broadly waves hand* everything), and built a repository of amazing memories that we won’t forget. I know I’ll stay connected to issues there for years to come, and didn’t leave without finishing up some last stories.
The first is about School Streets. Low-traffic neighbourhoods are getting all the attention in the UK, but another major intervention growing in popularity are School Streets, which block through traffic in front of schools during morning and afternoon runs to get more kids walking and cycling. It combats crises of air pollution, health and equity. And with new Covid-19 funds, dozens are being rolled out nationwide, in the biggest rethink of the school run in generations. Read on for heartening stories about parents and kids cycling together in this piece for Bloomberg CityLab.
And the second is more general. We’ve entered a “golden age” of cycling, if you haven’t heard, as more people are taking to two wheels during this socially distanced, stay-at-home time in decades. So for City Monitor, I examined the different policies (namely: more space; e-bike subsidies; repair vouchers) the UK government is deploying to cement the shift. And we’re already starting to see an impact.
& more cycling (this time about perceptions)
I wanted to make a quick point here about a certain phenomenon I keep encountering.
This month, the Royal Borough of Kensington & Chelsea stripped a temporary cycle lane on its high street, arguing that, among other things, it was bad for business. Even though study after study shows, in fact, quite the opposite: cyclists are much more likely to frequent shops than motorists, and cycle lanes actually boost footfall since there’s less noisy, hostile traffic around to scare pedestrians away.
I often think about a story my colleague Dave Colon wrote for Streetsblog last October after Manhattan’s 14th Street Busway went in. Businesses along the corridor voiced the same concern of needing parking spaces for customers. So Dave decided to meet their bluff: he entered a pizzeria owned by an outspoken critic, and asked everyone the same question: how did you get there? Overwhelmingly, people had walked, cycled or gotten off the train nearby. Nobody drove. So why did the owner think that?
Businesses continue to discount intangible structural faults (i.e. online retail, skyrocketing rents, chains) and blame losses on tangible street changes. In Kensington’s case, that overlooks the dueling economic threats from Covid and the new Westfield mall nearby, too. And I think that’s largely due to our built-in perceptions. Humans are conditioned towards certain lines of reasoning, given our lived experiences. And that includes streets. No surprise: they’ve largely remained the same our entire lives, and there’s serious power in persistent positive reinforcement.
Take parking, for example: one would think, eyeing a city block, that surely everyone must drive, since there are parked cars fit for four or five people everywhere! We create this vision in our heads: this is the way. (Sorry, Star Wars stans, had to do it.) But consider this: a) most cars are driven by one person; and b) most urbanites don’t own or have access to a car. So, in reality, those parked cars only represent a fraction of the block, even though it might appear that they’re dominant. But how would you know?
I believe it’s the same with businesses. As long as these businesses were around, they’ve had parking spaces available. Or, at least, traffic that could pull up right out front. So surely, cars = business. It’s difficult to unravel a built-in perception; humans are creatures of habit, even when confronted by hard facts. Which is why it often takes seeing for believing.
Elevator pitch
Perceptions, attitudes and habits were a key pillar of my dissertation research into suburban travel patterns. And this month, I gave a presentation (hopefully the first of many!) on what I found to CoHSAT, Oxfordshire’s coalition of livable streets groups. If you’re interested in improving last mile journeys where you live or work, do shout!
The year that upended informal work
Another project that came to a tee this month (at least for the time being) is my work with PEAK Urban, a research initiative based out of Oxford. Since January, I’ve helped PEAK researchers with blog posts, newsletters and long-reads, which ramped up when all eyes turned to Covid. It was an effort to make wonky stuff read clearer, and a ton of fun, as I spoke with researchers on nearly all seven continents (no Arctic cities to research, fortunately). And occasionally, that work was published!
Before year’s end, we were able to get one last piece out, this one about informal workers for Thomson Reuters Foundation. This diverse demographic was particularly vulnerable to a prolonged crisis like the pandemic—lack of savings; lack of social protections; and doing jobs that typically involved face-to-face contact—and has, unsurprisingly, been battered this last year. PEAK was interfacing with informal workers across the globe way before Covid, and their research has garnered a new hue in its wake. And maybe even some solutions.
~trending~
And finally, looking ahead to 2021… (Yes, there will actually be another year after 2020.)
I spoke with Canvas8, an expert insights agency, about what mobility trends to expect next year. We covered a range of topics—from cargo e-bikes replacing trucks for last-mile journeys, to a refocus on the neighborhood trip—that, I believe, will increasingly dominate the conversation. Here’s a quick snippet of what we discussed.
One last shout-out
Alright, enough from me!
Here’s a big CHEERS to you, the reader, for signing up and scrolling through this newsletter. I’ve truly, truly appreciated all the feedback I’ve received since launching this (especially from folks encountering these issues for the first time), and hope I can deliver more to your inbox next year. 2021 is going to be an absolutely crucial year for metropolises around the globe, as we enter (fingers crossed) the recovery. So there will be no shortage of topics to cover.
Stay tuned!
Food for thought
“The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.”
- Editor Francis Pharcellus Church of The New York Sun, writing to Virginia O’Hanlon, 8, of West 95th Street in 1897 about the existence of Santa Claus.
John incredible insight in to many Urban issues and I took away so many things that I never knew or realized existed! You are truly a remarkable Journalist and more importantly an incredible problem solver. So proud of all you have accomplished and more importantly what you will achieve in the future! Welcome Home Imissed you and Angela, Aunt Pat🥰👍