We didn’t have any completely correct winners for our last sidewalk challenge, which was located at 20th Street looking north from Duncan Street, but we’ll name Geoff Glaab a winner anyway for guessing just on the other side of Portland’s Boone Square Park. Here’s a new sidewalk ready to be identified in the comments below for your chance to win a Broken Sidewalk magnet. (The rules: Leave a real email so we can get in touch if you win; No repeat winners for four months; Comments must be left on this news roundup.) Good luck!
And now on with your weekly roundup of top urbanism #cityreads:
The wealthy are walling themselves off in cities increasingly segregated by class. It should come as no great surprise that those with the most economic stability are shaping how we inhabit our cities. Why create ‘place’ when you can just buy a new one shaped to your desire? Washington Post: Wonkblog
In St. Louis Battle, It’s New Lofts vs. Homeless Shelter. St. Louis struggles with issues of systemic poverty, the shelter system, and gentrification. How long can we simply move the poor around forever without dealing with the underlying issue? Next City
The Myth That Everyone Naturally Prefers Trains to Buses. Eric Jaffe attempts to bust the myth around residents preference for trains over buses. Is it really an image problem? City Lab
More New Jobs Are in City Centers, While Employment Growth Shrinks in the Suburbs. Could the job hunt be adding to sprawl? New York Times
Urban Demographics: Elderly Cities. As our populations grey, how can we situate cities to meet the needs of its aging residents? Sustainable Cities Collective
A Painstaking New Study Reveals the Persistence of U.S. Racial Segregation. “Where cities and neighborhoods once mixed different kinds of people together, they are now becoming more homogeneous and segregated by income, education, and occupation… It is not just that the economic divide in America has grown wider; it’s that the rich and poor effectively occupy different worlds, even when they live in the same cities and metros.” City Lab
Money, Options Pour into Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis—Are They Any Good? Can the wrongs of urban renewal be righted without a significant understanding of why they didn’t work? Can we simply build over our mistakes? Planetizen
How Suburbanization Was Sold. Check out this short promotional film on suburbanization. City Lab
This is the best explanation of gerrymandering you will ever see. How to steal an election: a visual guide. Washington Post: Wonkblog
John Oliver’s Solution to America’s Infrastructure Crisis. If John Oliver can’t fix it, it can’t be fixed. City Lab
West Market looking East towards 39th St.
Kevin beat me to it. 39th & Market looking east. Crystal Chinese Restaurant used to be a KFC