The Fight Against New Neighbors

Every day at The Overhead Wire we sort through over 1,500 news items about cities and share the best ones with our email list. At the end of the week, we take some of the most popular stories and share them with Urban Milwaukee readers. They are national (or international) links, sometimes entertaining and sometimes absurd, but hopefully useful.

People who hate people: Jerusalem Demsas writes about a certain type of NIMBY that complains about their neighborhood being too crowded and that housing supply should be limited to keep populations from growing to “save the environment”. But this argument is not new or novel and has been made, inhumanely, over the last century to argue against immigration, the growth of countries in the Global South, and housing interventions which would ultimately benefit the environment. (Jerusalem Demsas | The Atlantic)

TXDOT wants to bury I-345: In Dallas, TXDOT has released it’s preferred alternative for replacing I-345 which splits downtown from the Deep Ellum neighborhood. They believe that burying the road is the optimal solution rather than removing it completely and replacing it with a surface boulevard, claiming that traffic models are telling them that if the highway wasn’t there a 50% increases in congestion would ensue. (Matt Goodman | D Magazine)

Regulating brake particles: In Europe, ultra fine particles created by braking will be included in the next round of emissions regulations. Previous regulations didn’t include these particles which include coarse dust (PM10) and fine dust (PM2.5) which can penetrate deep into the lungs. While a switch to electric vehicles will remove tailpipe emissions, brake dust will still be created, especially with vehicles made heavier by batteries. (Sean Goulding Carroll | Euractiv)

LA County’s river plan: Los Angeles County has released their final master plan for the LA River. The plan which is meant to serve as a kit of parts to help with community revitalization and ecological restoration along the multi-faceted urban river will go before the LA County Board of Supervisors in mid-June. 77 parcels were considered along the 51 mile waterway for the plan which began in 2016. (Josh Niland | Archinect)

Germany introduces 9 euro pass for summer: Germany is set to introduce a monthly 9 euro transit pass to help residents offset the high costs of fuel due to the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine. The program, which will cost the government 2.5 billion euro would last until August and be an incentive to get more people riding transit by dropping commute prices. (Denis Balgaranov | The Mayor.eu)

Quote of the Week

[Lawmakers in Florida] do not understand how they fit into nature or how nature works. Perhaps they just don’t care. Many hold the belief that there is no ‘value’ to nature. … If it isn’t ‘improved,’ it’s worthless. There is a lack of recognition of the ecosystem services that conserved lands can provide, therefore it is easy to claim that more conservation lands are not needed, or that they are too expensive.

–Marjorie Shropshire in Current Affairs discussing how lawmakers don’t understand the impact of road expansion in Florida on the environment.

This week on the podcast, Alix Gould-Werth of the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, and Alex Murphy, assistant professor of sociology at the University of Michigan, talk about their transportation security index.

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