"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?

I'm essentially done with a six page lit review on urban stream daylighting. As much as I've said that I'm not interested in being an urban planner, I actually found the literature engaging. Though I also very much appreciated Sharon Moran's more unusual critical humanities perspective on stream restoration and the White privilege and environmental racism embodied in spatial inequalities in funding.

I ended up reading a couple of assessments of the Arcadia Creek project in Kalamazoo. My thanks to my älskling lisagems for originally pointing it out to me!

What do I have left to do this weekend? I need to do one more interview and write up a paper on perceptions of public space in Kenosha. I need to finish up my paper on the Tunguska Event, which I need to relax about 'cause it's just a 100-level gen-ed class, dammit. I need to start putting together a poster to present for my GIS project. And I need to make more progress on a grad school personal statement.

This weekend's sacrifice on the altar of education has been going out to photograph protests at the local Wal-Marts. But I do feel like things are under control and progressing. And soon I get to see danaeris, who'll be up for the weekend! It's a lot more fun to do academic work when I'm sitting next to somebody I can make snarky comments to. *smiles*