Incubator Helps St. Louis Startups Thrive

PBS's News Hour looks into the usefulness of a business incubator in the post-recession economy in this slideshow.  

Signs for Pedestrian Traffic

Matt Tomasulo of Raleigh, NC, has created a few grass roots projects that promote local living. His latest project, Walk [Your City], sets out to increase walking in urban areas by installing signs that show pedestrians where and how far away venues and activities are. 

Chicago's $7 Billion Infrastructure Plan

On March 29th, Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel announced a $7 billion infrastructure investment plan that would create 30,000 jobs for the city. Interesting to note is the methods for paying for large portions of the plan.

"Through user fees, cost cutting, and energy and other savings rather than through higher property or sales taxes."

Electric Vehicles and Infrastructure

IBM's Allen Schurr writes that "smarter infrastructure is what will drive electric vehicle adoption" in a recent post on Co.Exist. 

In cities, all of the technical challenges related to EV charging are concentrated and commingled. High population densities mean that EV charging infrastructure must be abundant, consumer friendly, durable, and interoperable: from the ability to link with different types of vehicles, to accurate billing capabilities, to support for a variety of payment methods. This will require unprecedented collaboration between local governments, private businesses, and utility companies.

Blogs I've Found

Here's a quick list of a few blogs I like. Sometimes they have cool stuff. Sometimes they have stupid stuff. It's all a matter of timing and digging. 

CFR Presents: Renewing America 

Ideas and initiatives for rebuilding American economic strength.

The Atlantic Cities

Place matters.

Times Topics: Urban Areas

News about urban areas, including commentary and archival articles published in The New York Times.

GOOD: Cities

For people who give a damn.

Co.Exist

World changing ideas and innovations.

Any good ones I didn't mention? 

Building Building Birmingham

For the past semester I've been working for Operation New Birmingham (an economic development/ urban planning/ community relations non-profit) through a class I'm taking at UAB. Over the semester I've found a lot of great sites, articles, and research reports that add to the wealth of knowledge on local planning and development for urban areas. In many cases these resources could be directly applied to the problems that Birmingham is facing, and in other cases the connection wasn't so clear (but it's interesting stuff).

So I'm looking through this mountain of invaluable information, and I'm finding that there isn't any real way to share it with the people of Birmingham. So I decided to make a way. 

My hope for Building Birmingham is that it will be a real resource to those in Birmingham who are making decisions on planning and economic development.