Andrew Small
Andrew Small is a freelance writer in Washington, D.C., and author of the CityLab Daily newsletter (subscribe here). He was previously an editorial fellow at CityLab.
Also today: Infrastructure at the State of the Union, and mayors pressure Congress for housing funds.
What We’re Following
Cinder block ball? At Tuesday’s State of the Union, President Trump is poised to talk up his administration’s forthcoming infrastructure package, proposing public works projects ranging from highways to rural broadband to maybe even “commercial spaceflight.” If it’s anything like last week’s leaked draft, though, it might not be a great deal for cities. As a trillion-dollar promise shrinks to just $200 billion in federal spending, Politico reports that key players in Congress are skeptical. With a possible cut to the federal share of local transit partnerships, now mayors are worried, too (Governing). No wonder Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel dismissed the plan last week as “fairy dust” (Chicago Sun-Times).
We’re not broke: Cities stand to absorb a financial hit from the new federal tax law, but they’re not left without ways to bring in money. On CityLab, Bruce Katz and Jeremy Nowak outline three ways U.S. cities can fund the future.
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More on CityLab
Map of the Day
Reports emerged over the weekend that fitness tracking app Strava is revealing sensitive information about the location, layout, and personnel of overseas military bases and spy outposts.
CityLab’s Laura Bliss is on the news: “Strava’s global ‘heat map’ visualizes about a billion anonymized jogs, strolls, and bike rides, including those of military employees who did not opt out of the app's default settings. As CityLab has previously reported, city planners use Strava’s fitness data to improve public facilities. But this story raises important questions about the perils of data sharing on popular mobility apps. I’ll have more in this week’s edition of MapLab, my newsletter exploring the cartographic landscape.”
What We’re Reading
A video on New York City’s subway troubles—banjo busker included (New York Times)
The case for crowded neighborhoods (Bloomberg)
Which city has the best energy policy for Amazon HQ2? (Slate)
A guerilla project swaps ads with art (Fast Company)
The plan to privatize public sidewalks in Kansas City, Missouri (Vox)
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About the Author
