This week we're joined by Dr. Manuel Pastor, Professor of Sociology and American Studies & Ethnicity, University of Southern California, and Director of USC's Program for Environmental and Regional Equity (PERE) and the USC Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration (CSII). We chat about a broad range of topics including the Environmental Justice Screening Method and how that research was turned into California environmental policy. The importance of community organizing in getting agreement for legislation, his new book The State of Resistance, as well as his views on rent control as public policy.

This episode was first aired at Rail~Volution.org

This week on Mondays we talk about closing down the GM plant in Youngstown Ohio, climate change, more on housing, and Virgin Trains USA. We have a bit of a technical issue but hopefully you still enjoy the show. Below are links to the items we discussed.

News

Three Big Climate Takeaways - Vox

All Cash Purchases Must be Disclosed - 6sqft

Trump Administration floats sharing census information with law enforcement - Washington Post

Story of the Week

Why affordable housing is scarce in progressive cities - Curbed

$17 trillion could be saved with compact development - WRI

Spotlight New Mobility

Bright line will change name to Virgin Trains - Miami Herald

Puppies and Butterflies

Bruce Hallman and the SF Faces - Mission Local

This week we talk about Baby Boomer housing, Amazon, and decriminalization of transit fares.

News

Decriminalizing Fare Evasion - The Hill

Autonomous Delivery Vehicles - Fast Company

Amazon Won't Save Your Town - New York Times

Story of the Week

Baby Boomers Not Buying Homes - MNN

Spotlight New Mobility

Portland's Little Big Shift - Sightline

Puppies and Butterflies

Sharing a home with older residents - Guardian

This week we're joined by Professor Ralph Buehler of Virginia Tech who talks with us about the German transport concept of Verkehrsverbund (VV). The word translated to English means "transport network". We discuss where the first VV was formed and how more integrated systems could make transport in the United States more efficient and connected. There's also a discussion about docked bike share as well as how we can think about mobility as a service platforms in the future and their relationship to existing transport systems.

This week we're joined by Chrissy Mancini Nichols to talk about the election, scooter data, and cities from scratch.

Below are some of the pieces we covered...

News

Clickwork in Nairobi - BoingBoing

Rep. Peter DeFazio sees a bill - Washington Post

Scooter corrals in Santa Monica - LA Streetsblog

Atlanta approves the gulch - Curbed Atlanta

Story of the Week

Cities and scooter data - Wired

Nevada and the bitcoin city - NY Times

Cities from scratch - Bloomberg

This week on the podcast, Kate Sofis, CEO of SFMade joins us to talk about the resurgence in urban manufacturing. We talk about what types of goods are manufactured in cities like San Francisco, the zoning codes that allow manufacturing to thrive in strong housing markets, and how cities have changed the narrative on manufacturing in more urban locales.

This week the team talks about voting and San Francisco's fight between billionaire's over homelessness measures. We chat about how in Estonia you can keep your data and more about MIT's Moral Machine experiment asking people around the world about the trolley problem.

Here are the articles we covered...

Moral Machine - MIT Technology Review

Billionaire War - Wired Magazine

Own Your Own Data - Smart Cities World

Platform Urbanism and Walled Gardens - Fast Company

Also visit our sponsor - moovel

More News Items

Electric Delivery - Seattle Times

Rise in TNC Traffic - Tech Crunch

Cars Still Banned from the Seine - CityLab

This week California State Senator Scott Wiener joins us to talk about a number of issues near and dear to our heart including housing and transportation. We talk about what's holding California housing back and several of his bills that address this in the Senate including SB35 as well as the potential return next year of SB827 which would upzone housing near frequent transit. We also chat about the potential for state level discussions on congestion pricing as well as a far future idea of getting transit alignments right.

This week on Talking Headways we're joined by Eric Singer and Andrej Micovic, Associates at Bilzin Sumberg in Miami who talk about the creation of the RTZ ordinance. They also talk about how the recent TIF districts and the county's Strategic Miami Area Rapid Transit (SMART) Plan interact with the RTZ and what's important in writing planning code.

This week we're joined by Dr. Kari Watkins, Associate Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Georgia Tech and co-founder and "Chief Motivator" of OneBusAway, an open source platform for real time transit info. Kari talks about her research into the role of technology in the evolving transit experience, possible "dangerous futures ahead" - such as zero-passenger vehicles - and the "best future" of high capacity transit on dedicated right of way, fed by robust bike and sidewalk networks and TNCs for low density areas, all supported by timely information and payment - mobility as a service.

Also check out Rail~Volution for information about this year's conference starting Sunday.