Currently on our shelves and highly recommended:
What are you reading?
Next City has put together their 7 recommended podcasts Urbanists should be listening to now. But we’ve expanded beyond urbanism and added a couple of extras that we think are worth checking out.
Next City has a nice little description of each of their selections in their article here. But here is a run down of the titles:
And our additions:
Happy Listening!
After the Women’s March in January, our friends at All Souls Unitarian Church hosted a solidarity sing. From serving as a sanctuary space since November to sponsoring affordable housing in the rapidly gentrifying Columbia Heights neighborhood, All Souls is always a progressive, active, and conscientious member of our community, and we are honored to work with them.
Get ready to have chills.
enough said – L
Inauguration is upon us for President 45, and for many that means a different kind of Inauguration, the onset of the Resistance. Whether you’ve been in the Resistance for years, just joined recently, or are thinking of jumping in soon, we want to remind you that this is a marathon not a sprint. So we encourage you to make a true habit of resist, reflect, and rest are vital for being successful and staying healthy.
Mirah Curzer outlines some of the keys to sustaining your opposition to the erosion of civil rights without burning out in “How to Stay Outraged Without Losing Your Mind.”
Take a second and read it while you’re in your Reflect phase, and we’ll see you out there when you’re recovered and ready. -L
A project out of Richmond, but with contributions from other universities and foundations, has created a digital library of US state’s role in housing development. The project, Mapping Inequality : redlining in New Deal America, illustrates quite candidly the interplay between racism, administrative culture, economics and the built environment and the long term effect of local and state policies.
We are fans of evidence based solutions, and thus research and analysis is an important factor of how we determine what policy solutions to support, and what neighborhood projects to invest our time, resources and funding.
A new study has been released titled, A Prospective Analysis of the Costs, Benefits and Impacts of U.S. Renewable Portfolio Standards. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory analyzed state renewable energy portfolios to assess costs and benefits into the future. The study analyzed two scenarios, 1) if RPS’s remain unchanged from current status, and 2) if RPS expand in every state and have higher targets.
The findings are dramatic. The reduction of pollutants, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, greenhouse gas emissions and water consumption in both scenarios are incredible. The savings in health and environmental benefits are promising and all of these outweigh the costs accrued through the RPS standards. Turns out, investing in solar is a good use of public dollars.
As this MidwestEnergyNews.com article headline states: Benefits of state renewable energy policies far outweigh costs.
The DC Fiscal Policy Institute issued a study today called “A Broken Foundation.” The Washington City Paper did a summary of it here. But we can break down even further into the pieces that, in our opinion, need to be considered immediately by policy makers, development and housing offices and affordable housing developers.
Read on after the jump for more. Continue reading
Our definition of placemaking may be a little more community centered than author Juanita Hardy’s at the onset of her article in the Urban Land Institute: Growing Value through Creative Placemaking, but the ultimate conclusions are quite aligned with ours!
Hardy evaluates Placemaking through the lens of a 2010 paper by Anne Markusen and Gadwa Nicodemus entitled “Creative placemaking animates public and private spaces, rejuvenates structures and streetscapes, improves local business viability and public safety, and brings diverse people together to celebrate, inspire and be inspired.”
This video nails it so succinctly, there isn’t much I can add in terms of intro. But I do highly encourage you to take some time to watch, and then another second to share with your network.- L
Root + Branch 