Making Cities Work for Everyone

I had to get gas on my way home from work the other week, I was just barely above the red notch that says, "hey dingus, you've got a couple miles left—get to it!"

While I was waiting at a red light I thought about when the last time I got gas was, or how much it cost. I probably only fill up every six weeks or so, I don't drive very much. Couldn't tell you how much it cost until I got to the pump.

I'm grateful that I don't have to fill my car up with gas frequently. I know people who fill up every two weeks, or even every week for my friends who bought vehicles that get 10 miles per gallon.

Thinking back to working in the service industry, I frequently heard servers say that they lost money coming in to work that day. The gas money cost them more than they made for the whole day. Slow days meant some people got cut early, meaning that spending gas was a waste, and those who stayed had nothing to do. Even on regular days, if too many servers were scheduled then no one would profit anything for the day.

There was one guy that worked with us that didn't have a car. He'd ask someone pretty much every shift for a ride to work and a ride home. I drove him home one night after a late shift, and there was no way he would ever be able to walk that distance. There was no bus out in his area. No train into town either. Not even a sidewalk.

There were no businesses in his area that he could work at either, he lived in a development way out of town on a State Highway with just houses and then the road. Nothing for miles and miles around. He once lost over a hundred bucks one day because he had to pay an Uber to take him to and from work, and then didn't have any tables to serve when he got there. He had to. He could have been fired for not showing up.

You might ask, "Well why did he live and work so far away?!" Because when the development pattern for homes is Drive Till You Qualify, you force people to live far from town. He chose to live in an area he could afford—it just happened to be far from any employment options he had. He ended up leaving that job for unrelated reasons, but I can't help but think that if he had stable transportation, he could have had a better quality of life with fewer stressors. Plus, the business would've had an easier time scheduling him —and everyone else. There'd be fewer complaints about losing money coming to work if no one was forced to drive and spend money on gas.

Driving to work is a no-brainer for most folks, the price of gas is important but not life-changingly important to a middle-class, white-collar employee. No office worker is going to miss a day of work because they literally cannot afford gas to get there. I'm sometimes asked why I care so much about urban planning, and one reason among many is for the sake of people like my old coworker. Through no fault of his own he was inadvertently hurt by poor and inefficient land use policies. We know how to do better, and it is the duty of the people we vest with the authority to make planning and zoning decisions to act prudently and wisely.

We don't give people the best chance at success when one of the few places lower income folks can afford to live is far out of town, away from any business or amenity or transit corridor. Forcing already low-income people to own a car and all the related maintenance compounds their financial problems. Almost everyone I worked with in the service industry had old beaters, even some of those who'd been working for many years. We worked at a nice restaurant in a nice part of town and cars breaking down was the most common frustration. God forbid you get in an accident and don't have a car for a couple weeks or months. There's no remote option for service work.

Wouldn’t it have been nice for them to have taken public transit or walked to work? No down payment, no monthly car payment, no gas spending, no maintenance. According to NerdWallet, owning a car can cost almost $11,000 a year. When you’re a server and make $2.13 an hour, and have a radically inconsistent work schedule (10 hours one week, 78 hours the next) it can be difficult to budget in a 5-figure expense—you simply don’t know how much you’re going to make.

I want to encourage people to think about the shape and feel of their hometown. Is your town conducive to a good, dignified, and flourishing society? Does your town directly or indirectly inflict undue expenses on its inhabitants from poor land use? Does your mayor or town council easily approve a highway expansion worth hundreds of millions, but drag its feet kicking and screaming over a modest infill development? Are new developments or re-developments in the center of town (do you even have a center of town?) or are they way out on the edges?

None of my old coworkers lived in the town where we worked. They all lived in distant, exurban developments that had no amenities or businesses near them. The only boast these developments had were their “easy” connections to I-45. The development patterns of our towns and cities matter. It is not tenable to keep pushing people out further and further away from where they make a living.

It is an unnecessary and self-inflicted burden that our towns and cities don’t want to allow walkable, mixed-use neighborhoods (i.e., commercial space on the ground floors with housing or office space above it). In the places where that is available, it’s much beloved and—due to scarcity—currently very expensive. At the very least, we ought to consider building housing and businesses in close enough proximity that spending $11,000 on a car every year doesn’t have to be a fact of life, but rather a choice we make because we want to.

Improving our city design to be less car-dependent and more walkable helps everyone. However, it most dramatically helps our friends and family that can’t afford to miss a day of work just because their car broke down.

A walkable city is a resilient city, and it’s citizens are happier and wealthier.