There’s a group called Strong Towns. It’s a national group, started by Charles Marohn, with the intent to shift our building priorities from the WWI-era thinking that generated most of them. Some chapters key in on fighting the vampiric dominance of the single-family home model, passing ADU policy, and affordable housing. Here in Houston, we’re more focused on parking minimums.
“Civilians” may not know why this is a priority for professionals and would wince at the mere mention, because “Why focus on that?” After all, in such a car dominant city, we do need places to park when we go to places. The true about high concentrations of concrete: it holds heat and creates a heat bubble. We call this the Heat Island Effect. In Houston, where it’s already sweltering, so many parking lots only intensify problems. The YouTube channel, Climate Town hosted by Rollie Williams, has an episode on this very issue. Flat, open, parking lots are a plague in our city.
If you want some primers on the conversations we’re having – have been having – Strong Towns actually has a list of book recs. These will be helpful understanding many of the conversations city leaders all over the country (and the world, really) have been conducting since, at least, the 90s. If you don’t have the money, request them at your local library. Have a difficulty reading? Most (probably all) of these books have been out long enough that there should be audio versions.
The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
Strong Towns, the book, by Charles Marohn
Missing Middle Housing by Daniel G. Parolek
The Color of Law by Richard Rothstein
Builders Without Borders 