Lakes, Streets, and Neighbors

Will we choose to "persist for the sake of others?"

Cartoon via Andy Singer’s, Why We Drive

Happy Friday,

Grant deadline-related work really chewed up most of my week this week. But it has been submitted and the work is done for now. Fingers crossed that a few communities are awarded dollars for sorely-needed projects.

It’s never a comfortable feeling when the fate of something you put effort into is out of your hands, but that’s the majority of the job in community development and city planning. You do what you can, but ultimately a whole host of others are going to pick apart, reconfigure, criticize, and armchair-hindsight the hell out of it, and you’re helpless to stop it.

Life itself is much the same. And the point, I think, is that regardless of the external noise and judgment, we have to keep making the attempt to improve the lives of our neighbors. That’s the human thing to do. There’s value in persisting for the sake of others.

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Every Friday I send this newsletter out with:

• Something I wrote, and;

• A few things I read, watched, or learned that I found value in and think are worth sharing.

I hope you find this email to be in some way informative, thought-provoking, and valuable. Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments.

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Something I wrote

Living on the shores of Lake Erie for the vast majority of my life, I’ve become spoiled. It’s become a given to me that that natural beauty will always be just a stone’s throw away, and when I lived in Columbus for a few years, I found myself missing it terribly. And as it turns out, the lake (and its Great Lakes brethren) may become key points in the United States’ strategy against climate change. How will those places react if and when outsiders in need show up on their doorsteps?

Representative line from the piece: “We must prepare for the potential of another great migration, and the Great Lakes ought to be ground zero in those preparations.”

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Some Things Worth Checking Out

• I wrote about climate change and the Great Lakes because of an article from Kelly Leilani Main and Greg Lindsay over at Fast Company. They outline reasons why the region is well-equipped to handle an influx of new residents, and how the federal government should begin preparing.

• That article echoes one that I wrote in February 2020 over at Medium.

  

  Cartoon via Andy Singer’s No Exit

• You know what would help mitigate some of the effects of climate change? Changing our relationship to the automobile. As the pandemic begins to fade and restrictions are lifted, we have a choice to make on how our cities and towns use street space. A bunch of things I read this week tackle that issue, asking who should get the streets, opining that we’d be better off without so many cars, and illustrating how the street redesigns of the pandemic were powerful reminders of how much public space we give away, where we give the most public space away, and how ridiculously expensive it is.

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