Car to run on air
Indian car company Tata is backing an air powered car called the OneCAT. This five-seater holds compressed air in carbon-fiber tanks that can be filled in just three minutes.
According to the BBC, “For long journeys the compressed air driving the pistons can be boosted by a fuel burner which heats the air so it expands and increases the pressure on the pistons. The burner will use all kinds of liquid fuel.” The OneCAT will use about 120 mpg on longer trips.
The builders assure us not to worry about the air tanks exploding during an accident. “There’s no issue with safety–if the air-car crashes the air tanks won’t shatter–they will split with a very loud bang. ‘The biggest risk is to the ears.’”
Source: India’s Tata backs air-power car
Bush’s proposed budget cuts $2.4 billion from domestic spending
President Bush unveiled his proposed $3 trillion budget for 2009 on February 4th in Washington. The budget, according to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, “proposes increased funding for the Department of Defense [by $35 billion to $515 billion for core programs--NOT including war costs], cuts to health care programs, and about $2.4 billion less for domestic discretionary programs other than Homeland Security.”
Specific program cuts include:
$1.3 billion less than is needed to fund existing Section 8 Housing Vouchers
$315 million from Public Housing funding
$659 million from Community Development Block Grants
$77 million from Housing for People with Disabilities
Elimination of the Community Services Block Grant–$654 million
The budget also proposes to cut Medicaid by $18 billion over 5 years.
The budget is likely to reach a record deficit of over $413 billion after including all the war funding–$70 billion requested, but will likely be much higher since he requested $200 billion this year.
Sources:
Bush cuts health and community services
Budget Would Cut Programs for Housing and Homelessness
The President’s FY 2009 Budget Proposal: Analysis and Policy Implications
Bush Budget Sees Bigger Deficits as Economy Slows
France gets super-fast train
France’s Alstom (an engineering company) unveiled the AGV (Automotrice Grande Vitesse or high-speed railcar) train on Tuesday. The AVG, which reaches 223.7 miles per hour, can travel 1,000 miles in three hours. Alstom’s Executive Chairman, Patrick Kron, says this begins “a new stage in the competition with the airlines.”
The AVG upgrades train efficiency as well. According to Reuters, “Rather than having a powerful locomotive at the front or back, the AGV uses motors located beneath the train” increasing both passenger sizes and space from older models. The AVG is also uses about 15 percent less fuel than its competitors.
Sources: France unveils super-fast train and France’s Alstom launches faster high-speed train
The Most Miserable Cities
Detroit is ranked #1 in the Forbes Misery Measure according to the article “America’s Most Miserable Cities.”
Forbes, which created a Misery Measure for the study, included factors like unemployment, taxes, weather, pollution sites, commute times, and crime to rank America’s most miserable places. New York City was surprisingly fourth on the list, thanks to amazingly high taxes and housing costs, and Philadelphia ranked fifth.
According to the article:
The biggest surprise on our list is Charlotte, N.C., which is ranked ninth. Charlotte has undergone tremendous economic growth the past decade, while the population has soared 32%. But the current picture isn’t as bright. Employment growth has not kept up with population growth, meaning unemployment rates are up more than 50% compared with 10 years ago. Charlotte scored in the bottom half of all six categories we examined. It scored the worst on violent crime, ranking 140th.
Source: America’s Most Miserable Cities
First “green” homeless shelter built from ground up
The New York Times has reported on the near completion of Crossroads, a 125 resident homeless shelter in East Oakland, California that, “may be the only ‘green’ homeless shelter built from the ground up.”
According to the article “A Shelter Is Built Green, to Heal Inside and Out” it has, “a solar-paneled roof, hydronic heating, artful but practical ceiling fans, nontoxic paint, windows that can be opened to let in fresh air, and desks and bureaus made from pressed wheat.”
This $11 million building shows it’s possible to construct low-income housing that surpasses the private market in innovation and design.
Source: A Shelter Is Built Green, to Heal Inside and Out
New Low-Income Housing Units Increase Nearby Property Values
Homeowners in the US regularly protest plans for building housing for the homeless in their neighborhoods, fearing the decline of nearby property values. Headlines such as “Despite Opposition, Housing Project Advances,” and “Housing for Homeless Draws Resistance” regularly appear on the KnowledgePlex (a group that compiles urban news from around the US) website showing this as a common belief.
Tim Bruer, member of Madison’s Community Development Authority, says that “housing for the homeless would further concentrate poverty on [Madison's] South Side and obstruct efforts to bring economic development to the area.”
But, from what we see happening in Philadelphia, Bruer’s wrong.
Sister Mary Scullion, of Philadelphia’s Project HOME, says, “I think real estate values actually increase when we put a facility for the homeless in a neighborhood,” in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer.
And according to a recent study, she’s right. “Where homes in Philadelphia have risen in value an average of 5 percent since 1993, they have risen 6.8 percent within a quarter mile of Project HOME sites.”
The property values surrounding Project HOME’s developments increased value faster than the rest of Philadelphia because they chose to locate in economically distressed neighborhoods and improved the buildings that would have normally sat vacant.
According to Dennis Culhane, a social policy professor at Penn who studies the effect of public housing on Philadelphia real estate prices, “Even if these sites alone are not driving the better-than-average property-value increases, they certainly are not dragging these property values down.” So housing for the homeless doesn’t “obstruct efforts to bring economic development,” it actually facilitates economic development.
Another reason might be better design. New developments blow away the cinder block, utilitarian buildings of the past. Design and environmental efficiency are now a priority, and might be even out pacing the private market in green design innovation. According to the Chicago Tribune, “A growing number of architects, from established stars to ambitious up-and-comers, are looking to such projects as an opportunity to do innovative work.”
Don’t believe me. Check out what’s going on in Seattle, or Santa Monica, or read what even right-wing Forbes has to say in “Low-Income-Housing Builders See Green.”
Traffic Calming in Bohmte, Germany
WorldChanging.com posted a nice article on traffic calming in Bohmte, Germany.
It sounds wrong but, “On one section of a major thoroughfare through the city, Bohmte officials have erased lane markers, torn up sidewalks, and bulldozed curbs in a radical effort to force people to use common sense and courtesy when driving rather than relying on lane markers. The only traffic rules that remain are a speed limit of 30 mph, and a requirement that everyone who uses the road yield to the right.”
Shared space transportation planning works because, “people pay more attention when they’re not distracted by ‘highway clutter.’”
Full Story: “Shared Space” Traffic Calming: Counterintuitive, But It Works
MIT’s City Car
Engineers at MIT are finishing up their City Car design. The City Car is, according to CNet, “envisioned as a two-seater electric vehicle powered by lithium-ion batteries. It would weigh between 1,000 and 1,200 pounds and could collapse, then stack like a shopping cart with six to eight fitting into a typical parking space. It isn’t just a car, but is designed as a system of shared cars with kiosks at locations around a city or small community.”
Source: MIT offers City Car for the masses
Mapping on This American Life
This week’s episode of This American Life was about mapping. While people normally only use maps to get directions, the subjects of this episode map sounds, tastes, and smells.
You’ll find a map of houses with Halloween pumpkins shows more about income than you might think.
Link: Mapping
On the Future City Invincible
City Invincible has been lacking in content lately. Not because I lost interest, but because I’ve been so busy. I recently took a month-long trip to India, got a new job, and adopted a greyhound.
But I want to get things going again. My plan is to continue to monitor news about poverty, development, work, and housing. The “Selected News” section on the right has articles, found from all over the web, I suggest for reading and is updated almost daily. You can subscribe to it as an RSS feed in addition to this site’s RSS feed.
The main posts of this site will be more sporadic. During the week, I’ll write a few posts on really interesting news stories (maybe one or two). On weekends I’ll write longer commentary pieces about the week’s news.
Also, I started an actively growing NewsVine group called Urban Vine. There, we share stories about urban issues. Users vote on articles they like and the most voted-on articles make it to the front page. The goal is to get urban issues into the forefront. Please consider joining our group.
So don’t give up on me yet. There will be plenty more to come.
