Bicycles and Income Disparity
Apr. 15th, 2015 05:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stormdog"While wealthier people increasingly reduce their car dependency, poor people still aspire to car ownership."
From Citylab: How Low-Income Commuters View Cycling.
It almost seems paradoxical, doesn't it? But it makes sense in this time of urban gentrification by Richard Florida's "Creative Class." Relatively wealthy, relatively White folks are moving into urban cores and dealing with the results of lengthy disinvestment in those areas. But while owning a bike and not a car seems less expensive on the face of it, being among the urban poor often puts you in a position where biking is not a viable option. This connects to other things I've been reading about bicycle infrastructure being poorly implemented from a social equity point of view and becoming a divisive issue. Where was all this capital investment when it was Black and Brown folks living there? And more importantly, how can we include places where they're living *now* in this kind of development?
From Citylab: How Low-Income Commuters View Cycling.
It almost seems paradoxical, doesn't it? But it makes sense in this time of urban gentrification by Richard Florida's "Creative Class." Relatively wealthy, relatively White folks are moving into urban cores and dealing with the results of lengthy disinvestment in those areas. But while owning a bike and not a car seems less expensive on the face of it, being among the urban poor often puts you in a position where biking is not a viable option. This connects to other things I've been reading about bicycle infrastructure being poorly implemented from a social equity point of view and becoming a divisive issue. Where was all this capital investment when it was Black and Brown folks living there? And more importantly, how can we include places where they're living *now* in this kind of development?
