Beyond Chicagoland

Two weeks ago, I posted some thoughts on raising kids in cities and right away, the comments section and Twitter lit up with a fruitful discussion of urban and car-lite parenting.

A patent troll who persistently sued transit agencies for using technology that gives passengers real-time arrival information won't harass any more transit providers under the terms of a settlement reached in federal court yesterday.

Guest contributor Kristen Maddox recently spent a year in Copenhagen as a Fulbright fellow and worked with Copenhagenize Design Company. Now back in the US, she is actively looking for work in bicycle planning and advocacy.

Sometimes public officials say regrettable things. But few of them display the flagrant disregard for part of their constituency that St. Louis County Department of Highways and Traffic spokesperson David Wrone has.

Tax increment financing is a pretty neat tool cities can use to finance quality-of-life amenities, like the Beltline in Atlanta, or the streetcar in Kansas City, by capturing the taxes from the property value increases of the investments.

[This is the second post of a two-part series by guest contributor Kristen Maddox. Part I compared the modal hierarchy, bike infrastructure and bike culture in Chicago and Copenhagen. Kristen recently spent a year in Denmark as a Fulbright fellow and worked with Copenhagenize Design Company. Now back in the US, she is actively looking for work in bicycle planning and advocacy.]

Every bike ride to work, and every walking commute, is as good as money in the bank for the Australian economy, according to a new government report.

All of a sudden, I feel like all anyone is talking about is whether it’s a good idea to raise kids in the city. I’m raising a kid in the city. I feel great about it when she has a blast on the back of the bike, or makes friends on the bus, or gets excited about pressing the beg button at the corner. I feel a little less certain when we toddle down the sidewalk and come upon guys peeing on the dumpster or passed out on the stoop. When I look at the test scores for our neighborhood schools, I get a knot in my stomach.