I have been developing an interest in urban planning recently. So when we went to hear from Gil Penalosa, the Detroit Future City keynote speaker, I was fascinated by everything he had to say. He presented\u00a0great\u00a0approaches such as ‘8 to 80,’ \u00a0and ‘Pedestrians first.’ \u00a0His\u00a0lecture made me realize that\u00a0I have always underestimated the importance of bike lanes, wide sidewalks, green spaces, etc. They have positive implications that outsize their costs; healthier residents, more inclusive communities, and significantly more eco-friendly cities.\u00a0He also made the striking claim that the problem is\u00a0never a lack of resources but a lack of political will.\u00a0As he said that, I thought about the cities that I have lived in, from Cairo and Baghdad to Ann Arbor and Detroit. There is so much that these cities’ planners could and should do to promote social and environmental justice. But they haven’t because they didn’t want to rather then they couldn’t?<\/p>\n
Detroit city councilwomen, Raquel Castaneda-Lopez backed that claim with an example as she participated in a panel discussion after the lecture. She spoke of the lack of political will that holds back any initiatives that might reduce car use in Detroit. At one point in her career, she was told that she is going to destroy the auto industry if she makes it easier for pedestrians.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I have been developing an interest in urban planning recently. So when we went to hear from Gil Penalosa, the Detroit Future City keynote speaker, I was fascinated by everything he had to say. He presented\u00a0great\u00a0approaches such as ‘8 to 80,’ \u00a0and ‘Pedestrians first.’ \u00a0His\u00a0lecture made me realize that\u00a0I have always underestimated the importance of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1669,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dcbrp-2015"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1669"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16094,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6086\/revisions\/16094"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/courses.lsa.umich.edu\/dcerp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}