Mixed-use neighborhoods are an economic cheat code.

Build more of them.

The Software & Hardware Framework for Marketing Urbanism The six things urbanism must do to both grow its reach and rekindle America’s love for cities.

Urbanism has a marketing problem.

The ideas are right. The cities are worth saving. But we’re still losing the narrative.

It’s time for a better strategy.

This morning at Market Street I wrote about the Software & Hardware Framework:

mktstreet.substack.com/p/the-softwa...

With the Right Target Audience, a City Sells Itself Tourists, sports leagues, and splashy headlines won’t build your city. Residents will.

Too many cities are building for tourists and big external investments instead of the people who actually live there.

But building with a residents-first mindset isn’t just a sappy feel-goodism.

It’s tactically savvy:

mktstreet.substack.com/p/with-the-r...

Cities are supposed to be where you go to chase your dreams.

But if you dream of solving housing, they’re often where ambition goes to die.

The barriers are just too high.

Making housing allowed has somehow become a bigger challenge than building it.

It shouldn’t be this way.

Super cool - a pair of students set up a website where you can track NYC congestion pricing's impact on different major routes.

www.congestion-pricing-tracker.com

Even if neither of these two viruses hit epidemic levels, it's hard to imagine a world where another public health event of some kind isn’t in the cards.

The cities that do the work to be ready in advance will be the ones that survive and thrive in the aftermath.

This looks like several things, but here's a few key actions cities can take:

- Upgraded ventilation in K-12 classrooms
- Expanded outdoor dining
- Investments in parks and outdoor spaces

As we roll into 2025, bird flu (H5N1) continues to lurk in the background and norovirus outbreaks are surging.

Both stand as reminders that cities should be preparing for future public health events.

Thanks for the shoutout!

Three Trends That Will Shape Cities in 2025 Here are three trends that will shape cities in 2025.

Incoming president Donald Trump has pledged that tackling the urban migrant crisis through mass deportations will be a key part of his agenda in his second term.

I wrote about this and a few other trends that I believe will shape cities this year:

urbaneer.kit.com/posts/three-...

Friday Five: Tiny Trucks, Snowy Sidewalks, and Building Conversions

This week's Urbaneer Friday Five:

- Kei Trucks:
- Sidewalk Clearing Pilot Programs
- Office-to-Housing Conversions

And more!

Check it out and join 700+ subscribers getting the latest trends and news in urbanism every week ⤵️

urbaneer.kit.com/posts/friday...

Each of these pictures was made possible by city builders:

Developers.

Engineers.

Planners.

Entrepreneurs.

Marketers.

Accountants.

Architects.

Electricians.

Politicians.

The ways to make an impact on your city through your career are endless.

We need more city builders.

City Hall Is Hiring As President-elect Trump targets federal jobs, local governments still recovering from Covid-era staffing hits are facing their own workforce challenges.

According to a survey from MissionSquare, over half of US cities are facing waves of retirement.

For Gen Z, local government will be one of the hottest industries for job opportunities with purpose and a proactive focus on attractive benefits.

www.bloomberg.com/news/article...

I’m not an “obsess about birth rates” guy.

But I do think one byproduct of people having fewer kids is the way NIMBYism prominent on both the left and the right.

You can’t sell “we’re building more homes so you’re kids can afford to live here too” when those kids don’t exist.

Cars are one of the leading causes of death in America.

The next four years only stand to make them more dangerous.

Local leaders now bear the sole responsibility of building places that constrain the threat of vehicles as much as possible.

Federal laws and resources aren’t coming to save you.

The most American thing ever is being willing to die for our preferences.

The same people that fear monger about cities are the ones that cling to cars like life depends on them.

We're willing to die for the habits that are killing us.

A culture of death if there ever was one.

They're visiting in like dozens of private drones though, rather than multi-passenger space transit.

That's what our government's been hiding from us for decades: car-dependency is a peace offering to our alien overlords.

Car brain is actually an issue across the galaxy.

I won't pretend to be an expert on the threat level bird flu poses.

But as another respiratory virus hits the news, it's a reminder that great urban design is also a hedge for pandemic resiliency.

Tree canopies and outdoor dining spaces are two great, cost-efficient ways to pandemic-proof a city.

Sure.

But you’re seeing similar investments in manufacturing and other non-defense industries too!

Definitely not saying it’s easy (nothing ambitious ever is!), but the dollars are out there.

Anduril raised $1.5B to build a modular factory that will hyperscale American defense manufacturing.

There's real buzz, energy, and resources out there looking to support American ambition.

Who's building the Anduril of housing production? Of infrastructure? Of mass transit?

Friday Five: Highway Conversions, Transit Records and Grand Reopenings

In this week's Urbaneer Friday Five, we looked at a potential highway conversion in Milwaukee, Notre Dame's reopening, and record usage of Amtrak and bike shares:

urbaneer.kit.com/posts/friday...

"Children are a kind of indicator species. If we can build a successful city for children, we will have a successful city for all people."

- Enrique Penalosa

When people think tech they think San Francisco.

But Silicon Valley is actually incredibly suburban.

I can’t help but think that shapes our tech and our culture in ways we don’t fully understand.

New York City’s ‘Living Breakwaters’ Brace for Stormier Seas Landscape architect Kate Orff’s unique shoreline protection device off Staten Island is designed to both prevent flooding and provide a new reef habitat.

NYC is leveraging a coastal climate resilience technology called Living Breakwaters that emerged from HUD's 2014 Rebuild By Design competition.

The best way to find great ideas is to dare people to come up with them.

Less commissioned studies, more competitions.

www.bloomberg.com/news/feature...

When done right, stadiums can be a part of great urban neighborhoods.

(📸Wrigley Field - Chicago, IL)

One reason cities are so unfriendly to children is their leaders see children as a problem.

Not everyone needs to have children. And not everyone can.

But cities that are child-friendly are more friendly for everyone.

The opposite is not true.

Build child-friendly cities.

Legalize cool buildings on weird lots.

The most respected member of the President’s cabinet is a former mayor.

The most promising politicians on both sides of the aisle are consistently mayors.

Rebuilding America’s political ecosystem runs through cities.

We dedicate most of our built environment to roads.

We build to go, not to stay.

Then we wonder why people are so hopeless and restless.

It’s because we built a world that always says you’re not where you’re supposed to be.

The Earth in Minecraft | BuildTheEarth Our mission is to fully recreate the entire Earth in Minecraft at a 1:1 scale. Anyone is able to join us and contribute!

These images come from a group who accepted the challenge to build New York City as part of the BuildTheEarth project:

buildtheearth.net