The Sunday Diigo Links Post (weekly)

• Can Urban Highways Be Fixed? – Commute – The Atlantic Cities

  Dwight D Eisenhower’s interstate freeway plan did not intend for freeways to run through cities. Too bad that memo was ignored…
  QUOTE
  But Eisenhower never intended that the Interstates be built through densely populated cities. A memorandum of a 1960 meeting in the Oval Office, available in the archives of Eisenhower’s presidency, makes this crystal-clear:

  [The President] went on to say that the matter of running Interstate routes through the congested parts of the cities was entirely against his original concept and wishes; that he never anticipated that the program would turn out this way . . . and that he was certainly not aware of any concept of using the program to build up an extensive intra-city route network as part of the program he sponsored. He added that those who had not advised him that such was being done, and those who steered the program in such a direction, had not followed his wishes.

  The Secretary of Commerce and head of the Federal Highway Administration were in the room. (Thanks to urban transportation whiz Rick Hall for finding this memo.)
  UNQUOTE

  tags: atlantic_cities freeways highways eisenhower kaid_benfield transportation

• Silicon Valley Homeless Feel The Grip Of Recession’s Long Reach

  An undoubtedly frightening article (or rather: an article reporting a frightening reality).
  QUOTE
  “The whole face of homelessness is changing, and a lot of that has to do with unemployment,” says Craig Billman, who was Michele’s case manager when she arrived at Maple Street and is now associate program director at the facility. “People from the professional ranks are becoming more prevalent. You’re seeing more first-time homeless than ever before.”

  That this is happening here, in the crucible of high-tech affluence, is a testament to the fact that it is happening almost everywhere in the country, part of a wave of suburban poverty that began in the 1990s and has accelerated since the beginning of the Great Recession.
  UNQUOTE

  tags: silicon_valley homelessness unemployment economy depression usa recession

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.