2. Fiscal Performance Mapping
is helping cities
understand where their tax
revenue is coming from
U
First, some background on what’s
going on with cities:
20. to be the right market response.
What we need to do is change the way we think about non-motorized transportation and
transit. When freight railroads were reshaping America and when, later, highway building
did the same, we witnessed the power of transportation to shape our economy, our cities, and
our concept of mobility.
I would suggest that walking, biking and transit are about to become the next wave of
transportation to shape our urban areas. And that combined, they are a new mode of
transportation. Looking at the location and lifestyle preferences of Gen X and Y, as well as
the preferences of aging boomers, it seems clear that a distinct advantage is going to go to
urban areas that can meet that market demand. However, we are still captive to the notion
that these modes are fringe, “green” and non-essential. and “soft”. A hundred years ago the
automobile was considered a rich man’s toy that was unreliable and scared the horses.
Change is a constant in transportation.
So, how do we begin to think about this new mode as an economic development tool, in the
same way we use to think about highways? If the transportation component of your local
economic development planning is uninspiring, if it puts vague hope in some new roads, if it
ignores transit, and if less than one percent of your combined transportation investments are
in the growth modes of biking and walking, you do not have a transportation component to
your economic development strategy.
Demographics as Destiny
TOM DOWNS / SEP 03 2011
For Release Saturday, September 3, 2011
Citiwire.net
The new demographics are found in two generations deeply influenced by
irst there’s the 20-30 something’s who grew up in suburbia and,
ot want what their parents wanted. The second
re now becoming empty nesters with a
d inment,
Citiwire.net
