This week takes us from Beverly Hills to the streets of Istanbul as we hear about novel transport ideas, nostalgic phone boxes, DIY urbanism and much-loved city cats. Share your thoughts about these city stories – and any others you’ve seen – in the comments below.
Beverly Hills
LA is certainly not a city known for its public transport. Although it used to have a popular streetcar network, cars soon dominated when this was removed in the 1960s. But Beverly Hills, one of the more surreal spots in the sprawling city, yet also one of the most pedestrian-friendly, may soon see the arrival of a fleet of driverless buses – or self-driving ‘electric shuttles’ – to improve public transport in the area.
As Adele Peters explains in Fast Co Exist, Beverly Hills is due to get two new subway stops in about a decade, connecting the area to downtown LA. But even this presented a problem: how to make it easy for people to reach the subway stops without a car (unlike some other subway stops, neither will have a park-and-ride lot for commuters to leave cars).
In the new system, driverless shuttles will come on demand to riders, through the use of an app. The shuttles optimise routes and pick up other people on the way (think UberPool without the driver). Rather than waiting at a bus stop, the shuttles would come to a rider – a particular bonus for the elderly or disabled. The difficulties of public transport are often cited to be an issue with growing older in cities, as we heard from you this week as part of our series exploring the phenomenon of ageing populations and how cities will adapt.
Peters notes that although experiments with on-demand public transport in Helsinki and San Francisco haven’t really taken off, the driverless vehicles in this initiative will run at a lower cost, thus potentially making the system more financially sustainable. A couple of places, such as the Swiss town of Sion, have experimented with driverless shuttles, but they are not on-demand.
Buses may not usually be people’s first choice in LA, but John Mirisch, the mayor of Beverly Hills, thinks people will embrace it. He believes a ticket for a ride on the new self-driving electric buses won’t cost more than one on a regular bus, thus making the service accessible for people who currently use public transportation. Although this may sound unlikely, the proof will be in the pudding.
Rent v salary
Many of us living in cities often feel like the money we earn is eaten up by paying rent. But where in the world does the average rent most outweigh the average salary? The Global Cities Business Alliance examined rental costs in 15 major cities around the globe, and Forbes has published a table of the findings, showing the cities where rent is least affordable compared to salary. The apparent takeaway is: don’t live in Beijing. While rent in New York might take up 63% of your salary, in Beijing the average rent costs 123% of the average monthly wage.
You used to call me on a payphone
A new short film is a tribute to the dwindling curbside payphone in New York City, many of which are now being turned into WiFi kiosks. Dead Ringer, by Alex Kliment, Mike Tucker and Dana O’Keefe celebrates the increasingly obsolete payphones of the city (of which there are more than 8,000) through a voiceover of one particular phone booth reminiscing about its once-important role, including in movies: “Without us Clark Kent is … well he’s just Clark Kent.”
Red phone boxes in the UK, too, are slowly disappearing and earlier this year you shared your memories and stories of them – from sustaining long-term relationships to the joys of dial-a-disc.
Activist Athens
As Cristina Ampatzidou explains in uncube, since the Greek debt crisis began to unfold, the capital of Athens has become an unofficial poster child for “informal” or DIY urbanism, as top-down funding evaporates. “The failure of the state to prevent the deconstruction of welfare structures has assigned the actions of citizen groups and initiatives a central role in providing many of the social public services, extending from medical services for the uninsured, food and shelter for the homeless, to the maintenance and beautification of public spaces,” writes Ampatzidou.
One of these “activist interventions” is a group called Atenistas, which has collected chewing gum from sidewalks, cleaned abandoned plots of land, and painted and decorated neglected city corners – all in the aim of “affirming their share of responsibility in improving the image of their city”. Could other cities take inspiration from such collective urban action?
On a side note, this article is featured in the last ever edition of uncube, one of our favourite online publications for all things urban and architectural. If you haven’t yet managed to delve into their fascinating and visually impressive back catalogue – now’s your chance.
Istanbul street cats
As a cat-loving urbanist, this may be an obvious story to include so excuse my bias. A new documentary film called Kedi, directed by Ceyda Torun, explores the relationship between Istanbul and its street cats: one that Torun seeks to explain goes back thousands of years. Now, though, the urban development taking place in the city is impacting the feline population.
“The more every bit of green space and soil in the city is flattened and paved over, the more inhospitable it becomes to cats,” Torun says in an interview with CityLab. The film shows that there are signs all over the city of residents trying to ensure the cats are ok despite the upheaval: cat shelters constructed out of Styrofoam packing boxes; neighbours that pay vet bills for cats that aren’t their own; bowls of food and water left on the street with signs such as “Cat restaurant, bon appétit” and “If you don’t want to be desperate for a drink of water in the next life, don’t touch these cups”.
Abandoned NYC cinemas
Not to fall into the “ruin porn” trap, but this gallery of abandoned cinemas across New York and New Jersey, published by Untapped Cities, is hauntingly beautiful. It’s saddening, too, to see once beautiful buildings sit unused and dilapidated, when with a bit of love they could return to their former glory.
Bristol’s mayor
The headlines may be dominated by the London mayoral elections taking place next week, but Bristol will also be voting for who they want to see lead the city. The Bristol Cable goes out and about to speak to the candidates and talk to them about their visions for the city and how they would improve it. Will red-trouser-sporting urbanist mayor George Ferguson win a second term?
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