The 15-Minute City: A Three-Part Webinar Series
Planning The Post-Pandemic American Future
Reconsidering Commuting Culture for a More Prosperous, Healthier, and Socially Dynamic Future
Three Sessions! April 30, May 14, and June 17, 2021
The Hudson County Economic Development Corporation, the County of Hudson, and McManimon, Scotland, & Baumann, LLC present a three-part series featuring global experts in the fields of planning, transportation, and municipal finance. The series will explore the need to create walkable, pedestrian-friendly cities as a larger part of proactive economic development attraction and retention strategies to build resilient local economies.
Cities and suburbs are, at their core, labor markets. Studies have shown (the most recent from MIT and the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia), that walkable cities with strong civic design attract more college graduates and achieve significantly higher economic growth. Yet, many of our municipalities are still plagued by a glut of parking and pedestrian unfriendly streets, designed for cars, that increase pollution and limit social interaction. The new wave of the workforce—Gen Z, Millennials, and even Gen X before them—need walkable, bike-friendly neighborhoods and cities, now popularly termed the “The 15-Minute City.” Multiple studies have shown their willingness to pay a premium to live in such places and that American society pays a steep price for having too few of them. By challenging our assumptions about what is possible, the Series intends to help us better understand and overcome the obstacles to making the “15-Minute City” a reality.
Register here
Session #1 – An Alternative Model to Our Current Commuting Culture
April 30, 2021 | 10:00 am to 11:30 am ET
America was once the train capital of the world before becoming the car capital of the world, and the country is again at an inflection point. The explosion in sales of bicycles and micro-mobility devices during the Covid-19 pandemic show multimodal transportation’s vast potential. Quickly emerging technologies such as Hyperloop and autonomous vehicles provide further impetus for municipalities to proactively plan their mobility future. Offering alternatives to cars is a hugely important element in attracting residents and reducing traffic. This session will share case studies from other parts of the world demonstrating the dramatic improvement to mobility that occurs when municipalities better accommodate all modes of travel.
Session #2 – Introduction to Proven Ways to Improve Walkability and the Pedestrian Experience in Our Towns and Cities
May 14, 2021 | 10:00 am to 11:30 am ET
One of the nation’s premier walkability experts presents the most effective ways to improve the pedestrian experience in our municipalities. Jeff Speck is the author of the best-selling book Walkable City: How Downtown Can Save America One Step at a Time and has worked on some of the country’s most successful walkability improvements. Mr. Speck is joined by Barkha Patel, Jersey City’s Director of Transportation Planning, who will discuss local examples of successful projects that prioritize pedestrians. This session will include guiding principles for future planning to ensure that walkability is properly incorporated into city plans.
Session #3 – Introduction to Refashioning Our Parking Regulations and Development Choices for Fiscal Health
June 17, 2021 | 10:00 am to 11:30 am ET
By contributing to a record-shattering decline in housing inventory, the pandemic has exacerbated an already existing affordable housing crisis while further stressing municipal finances. Our current development patterns and parking policies contribute rather than help solve this problem. While multiple studies have shown that affordable access to all of a region’s jobs is the single most effective factor for enabling a person to break the poverty cycle, our current development patterns result in those at the lowest income level spending 40% of their income on transportation while also limiting their ability to access all of a region’s jobs. This system could be explained or even tolerated if the costs of such a system were low, but our development patterns and parking policies are expensive to build and maintain. This session will force us to rethink some of our public investment assumptions to create more housing and better economic mobility across all income levels.
Hosted by
HCEDC
830 Bergen Avenue
Jersey City, NJ 07303
(201) 369-4370