Hulking Ruins

Portable classrooms, the death spiral of Big Box Urbanism, Uber gets a win in Palm Beach County, and the middle class is stranded in the suburbs

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Jesse Bailey
Whose Ethics?

Jason DeGray is a transportation engineer as well as a member of both Strong Towns and the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE).  As a member of ITE’s advocacy committee, he brought the charge levied against the engineering profession by Chuck in his piece Just Another Pedestrian Killed to the ITE Community to be explored.  The resulting internal dialogue led to the development of the op-ed below which was published in the March 2015 edition of the ITE Journal, their international publication, and is reprinted here with his permission. 

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Transportation’s Missing Middle

Transportation has a Goldilocks problem. At one end, there is “this mode is too solo:” the single traveler in a space-gobbling automobile. At the other, high dollar,we have “this mode is too big:” either high dollar, fixed guide-way public transit or high dollar road expansions.  As a country, we’ve institutionalized these two ends, with less interest for the in-between.  But thanks to technology, this is changing.  We are on the cusp of widespread microtransit.

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The Human Side of City Building

I've explained before that I spend my days as the designer and coordinator for a business accelerator program, based out of our provincial university. It is a great privilege for me to have been able to shape and grow this program. In a nutshell, we provide funding (including living expenses) and coaching for talented people who want to turn their skills into a business. Being a city builder, this has been an amazing opportunity to work side by side with the people who fill storefronts, hire local people, open workshops and factories, and change cities through their presence. This week has been uplifting and exciting for me because our applicants for this summer are finally in, and we are now selecting our new cohort for the program.

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