How to Solve the Problem of Vacant Storefronts?

Empty storefront. File photo by Jeramey Jannene.

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.

Teaming up on delivery truck design: General Motors’ Wade Bryant was in New York when he was struck with the huge amount of work delivery workers do to get people packages every day. His team then focused on designing a zero emissions delivery vehicle from the perspective of the delivery worker, from handling packages to the large number of times workers have to get themselves in and out of the driver’s seat. The result was the Zevo delivery van. (Nate Berg | Fast Company)

Depaving cities: With extreme weather events including huge rain events and heat waves, communities are starting to reconsider asphalt paving. Removing asphalt from schoolyards and backyards can have huge benefits including reduced runoff and less absorbed heat that results in lower temperatures. Now a group called Depave Chicago is trying to bring more attention to the benefits of reducing impervious cover in the city. (Lucy Sherriff | Nexus Media News)

Birmingham bankruptcy: Birmingham, England’s second largest city after London, has declared itself bankrupt after having difficulties paying almost $1 billion dollars in equal pay claims. Historically, female workers for the city had been paid less than men for doing the same work and the city has had to pay for past injustices. A perfect storm of lower revenues, inflation, and adult social care has impacted other cities around the country but Birmingham is the first to declare itself bankrupt due to financial hardship. (Rob Picheta and Catherine Nicholls | CNN)

Brussels reduces driving in city: One year after the implementation of Brussels Belgium’s traffic circulation, car traffic is down 25% and bike ridership up 36%. While the pandemic had some impact on the uptick in bicycles, the transportation plan owes much of its success to business outreach and continued relationship building. Additionally, some of the predicted traffic opponents were worried about including ring road jams never materialized. (Michiel Modijefsky | Eltis)

Vacant storefronts are key: The pandemic and subsequent trends towards working from home for many high income workers has led to a reduction in activity in downtowns. But what makes the reduction more stark argues Emily Badger, is the vacant storefronts on the ground floors of downtown office buildings. If filling empty storefronts is needed to restore activity, then cities and building owners need to rethink how to get people downtown and what profit means. (Emily Badger | New York Times)

Quote of the Week

Sometimes you just have to take the leap, understanding the theory and evidence about how transport infrastructure reshapes the world in a positive feedback way (more access → more development, more development → more infrastructure and more access), while recognising the randomness of life and unknowns of the world.

-University of Sydney professor David Levinson in Transportist discussing the fantasy of transportation modeling.

This week on the podcast, Dr. Robert Blaine of the National League of Cities joins us to chat about getting small cities federal infrastructure funds.

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