Citiwire.net

Welcome to Citiwire.net! Last week we turned on a comments function for both columns–and harvested quite a crop of contrary and supporting opinions. We’ll keep up the practice, so please feel free to offer your own comments below each of the columns (though please if you leave a comment enter your full name–we columnists do, and I can see no reason others, in a civil discussion, require anonymity). This week our new Citistates Associate Genie Birch of Penn reminds us that America’s urban policy development isn’t in a vacuum–that we face global competitors like China moving in some ways much more rapidly than we to bolster cities, create a coherent urban policy for the century. … My own column focuses on walking and biking and the case to regard them not as frills but as “active transportation” –a supplement and sometimes alternative to regular transportation funding, and a companion to the new Complete Streets movement, that can yield serious fiscal, climate and livability payoffs.