Do $1 Housing Schemes Work?

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. Each 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.

A model for a suburban retrofit?: Rancho Cucamonga California in the Inland Empire east of Los Angeles recently updated its 1980 general plan. A form based code was adopted and density has been targeted for the Metrolink station, arterial corridors and major shopping centers. The hope is that this growing city of 175,000 will grow into a more urban place with greater connectivity for everyone, not just those who drive. (Robert Steuteville | CNU Public Square)

Connecting Texas and Mexico: Officials from Texas and Mexico got together to discuss passenger rail between Austin, San Antonio and Monterrey Mexico. The line would be promoted as increasing commerce between the two countries and mirrors a Mexican expansion plan that would connect Mexico City with the Texas and Arizona borders. However the biggest barrier would be funding as TXDOT is now focused on expanding roads and a line between Houston and Dallas that has Amtrak’s attention as well. (Cristela Jones | My San Antonio)

Do $1 housing schemes work? Cities and towns around the world have tried luring new residents to cities and neighborhoods by offering homes for just $1 with proof of sufficient resources for investment. You see a lot of them in rural towns with declining populations such as in Italy but also the idea has been employed in urban places like Baltimore and Liverpool England. The question however is who benefits from schemes and do the promised improvements to the area actually materialize as imagined. (Rowan Bridge | BBC News)

How to rebuild storm damaged roads: Extreme weather is becoming more common and historical weather patterns can’t be trusted when designing infrastructure to meet the moment. Take roads for example, 400 of which were damaged during Hurricane Helene in North Carolina. Engineers have the ability to do quick fixes and have planned for road closures, but now they will need to prepare for 50 to 100 year flood events with new materials and perhaps new thinking. (Arian Marshall | Wired Magazine)

Why no tiny cars?: Mini cars have many advantages which include taking up less space, greater safety for those outside the vehicles, and of course lower costs. But the rigidity of US regulations which have just two categories of vehicle make sure that none of the innovations that other countries see come to the United States. So we’re stuck for the moment getting retro vehicles under existing import law but even the possibility of snagging a Kei truck might be under threat. (David Zipper | Bloomberg CityLab)

Quote of the Week

Most of the time, when I reach out to inquire about why a job would require a driver’s license when driving isn’t part of the job description, the license requirement gets removed pretty quickly. I’ve heard that it’s the default setting in many government HR hiring systems, so unless the person posting the job goes in and unchecks the driver’s license requirement box, it will appear in the posting.

–Anna Zivarts in Governing questioning why most job applications require a driver’s license when so many people don’t drive and the jobs don’t require it.

This week on the Talking Headways podcast we’re hitting 500 episodes! And to celebrate we have a bit of a look back in time with Tanya Snyder of the origins of the show and then we chat with Ken Napzok and Joseph Scrimshaw of my favorite podcast Force Center about living in Los Angeles.

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