Greater City Providence

News & Notes

Start-Ups Are Drawn to Pulse of Downtown [The Wall Street Journal]

“We used to be located in the Redwood Shores area, but I didn’t like it because it was too remote,” says Bill Demas, chief executive of Turn, which moved into a 10,000-square-foot office in the restored late 19th-century Alhambra building in downtown Redwood City in January. “We wanted to be in a more urban location, we wanted more restaurants and bars near us.

We have restaurants and bars in Providence…

San Francisco Passes First Open Data Law [Fast Company]

The law is brief. It simply says city’s departments and agencies “shall make reasonable efforts” to publish any data under their control — provided that doing so does not violate other laws, particularly those related to privacy. The Board of Supervisors passed the ordinance unanimously.

Open data, Newsom believes, makes city government more transparent and increases accountability. But it also makes life better for residents because tools can be made on top of the city’s data that the city itself never would have made. As the ordinance says, it benefits the city via the “mobilization of San Francisco’s high-tech workforce… to create useful civic tools at no cost to the City.”

Vinyl couldn’t be less sustainable [New Urban Network]

That which makes the absurd claim of being “maintenance-free” is not. When so-called “maintenance-free” materials fail, they fail catastrophically, and you have to cart it all off to the landfill. Haven’t we had enough of that?

Can we eliminate death and serious injury from roadways? [Greater Greater Washington]

A generation ago, we recognized the role of vehicle safety and created a vehicle-based safety culture focused on seat belts, air bags, and anti-lock brakes. The safety culture then broadened to include operator behavior, with a focus on drunk driving, road rage, and distracted driving. It’s time to systematically include roadway design in our safety culture.

Greater City Providence

Promoting the smart urban growth of the Greater Providence region.

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