Greater City Providence

News & Notes

News & Notes

Temporary uses can enliven city neighborhoods [Greater Greater Washington]

Imagine you have a long-vacant storefront or empty lot in your neighborhood. What if, just for a few months, it could become a plant nursery, a food garden, a beer garden, a sculpture garden, a playground, a clothing boutique or a tiny movie theater?

These small, temporary projects have the ability to revitalize vacant spaces, enliven neighborhoods, and provide small entrepreneurs a way test out their ideas with relatively small capital investments. This is what’s called “temporary urbanism” and shows how we can put vacant space back into productive use, even if only temporarily.


Transportation groups want to increase gas tax [Politico]

Voinovich also makes a point raised by others: Most drivers won’t even notice a gas tax increase.

A BP station in the Cleveland area was selling gas for $3.45 per gallon the day Voinovich spoke to POLITICO. The day before, he said, it was 25 cents cheaper. “It’s all over the lot,” he said of gas prices.

A 2009 poll conducted for Building America’s Future found that 60 percent of people think the federal gas tax is increased every year. It has remained unchanged – at 18.4 cents per gallon for gasoline and 24.4 cents per gallon of diesel – since 1993. It’s also not indexed for inflation, so as construction costs rise, the flat tax buys even less in infrastructure repairs and upgrades.


How The World’s Tallest Skyscrapers Work [NPR]

You guys, Dubai doesn’t have a sewage system. They load all their poo into trucks and wait in line to dump it into treatment plants.


The Map Geeks Behind ‘Bostonography’ [The Atlantic Cities]

They don’t update prolifically, but when they do, Bostonography is a great read.


How Cincinnati Defeated the Streetcar Haters … Again [The Atlantic Cities]

If it had been approved, Issue 48 would have prohibited city officials from spending money on anything related to preparing any type of passenger rail transit, including the streetcar system, through Dec. 31, 2020. Further, it would’ve restricted the city from accepting federal grants for such projects, along with entering into public-private partnerships or even accepting private investment for a passenger rail project within the city’s rights-of-way.

Greater City Providence

Promoting the smart urban growth of the Greater Providence region.

1 comment

  • I wonder what they’re doing at the former Daily Bread property here on Broadway. it looks like they’re making a funky lounge out of it. Hopefully it goes beyond the orange and brown color scheme.

    But I like the plant depot, or beer emporium ideas too.

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