IQ Fiber’s Post

"Infographic: Florida's Special Districts" There are currently 1,967 special districts across Florida, according to the Florida Department of Commerce. Most aren’t like the big, quasi-autonomous districts that cover The Villages and Disney World, though. Some just cover local or county libraries, utilities, parks, or airports, among other typical government functions. Others cover the whole state under a variety of functions, […] https://lnkd.in/gGVQ3T79

via Christina Taylor Say #NoCutsToParks! @NYCMayor has slashed the @NYCParks budget, and more cuts are coming. Already 1450 frontline parks maintenance workers have been lost. More cuts mean more trash-filled parks, playgrounds, beaches and ballfields. Send a letter: https://lnkd.in/exqCENaX This administration’s proposed cuts of 10% so far, and soon to be 15%, will devastate our park system. This will result in a $75M reduction to an already deprived agency, that has fewer workers today than it did before the pandemic. Year after year, NYC Parks staff does more with less. This past summer, they once again stepped up and took care of 30,000 acres of parks, with limited resources. The staff is already stretched too thin. They are tired and frustrated, and so are we. NYC Parks staff need more resources to do the work that the public expects and deserves–not less!

Good morning and happy Thursday! Here in Seattle, we have had a sunny summer 🌞😎, and the parks are absolutely full of people having fun 🏀⚽️🥾. Seattle Parks and Recreation has done a great job organizing various events for folks. A lot of parks around the U.S. aren’t able to organize as many great events because of a simple reason: not enough resources 😟. Some of those are more obvious, such as supplies to make signs and maintain facilities, paying employees, and fuel for vehicles. Some of the resources are not as obvious! For example, who knows what forms are necessary to sign and the best order to sign them? What’s the best way to get the word out to your community? These skills and knowledge may not be as visible as fuel or materials for signs, but they are critical to put on the amazing event that your community deserves. At Inluminare, we create resource portfolios that allow us to understand the full costs of delivering all kinds of programming. Whether it be guided walks in a park or offering initiatives at scale, we shed light on the resources critical to achieve your goals. Reach out today to partner with us and learn more! #parks #resources #resourcemanagement

Portland, Oregon

For Vision Zero to succeed in eliminating traffic fatalities, collaboration is crucial among residents, legislators, planners, and community leaders. This year's plenary sessions will bring members from important parties together to discuss local and state legislative efforts to make our streets safer. Our morning plenary will dive into two traffic calming projects, discuss the challenges, the vision and how Philadelphia can the projects scale up to improve safety all across the city. The afternoon session will explore the future of traffic enforcement in Pennsylvania, including new tools available in Philadelphia to enhance street safety. Read more: https://lnkd.in/ebvbeeDf

Virtual high-five, City of Oregon, Illinois, for replacing lead service lines in your community. And thank you for allowing #FehrGraham to help you secure funding to cover inventorying your lead service lines. 🔍 More than half of the inventory is complete, a step in ensuring a safer, lead-free water supply for the community. 🤔 Wondering about lead service lines and where to start? You're not alone. Fehr Graham specializes in a streamlined process that facilitates lead service line replacement in Midwest communities, securing crucial funding along the way. ☎️ Is your community ready to tackle lead service lines? We're here to help. 🔗 Discover more about Oregon's proactive steps and how we can support your community, too:

Monday, October 30 This week I’m thinking about Gainesville’s emergence as a multi-generational community. We’ve always been known as a university city (at least for the past century) but the realities of climate migration tell us we’re going to be more than that going forward. Are we prepared? Probably more than we think, if we make good choices with what we already have. I contend that we should play to our strengths, and not try to replicate other Florida “retirement cities.” What makes Gainesville interesting is that we offer a far more vibrant set of cultural and sports offerings than other cities our size, access to lifelong learning, less traffic than bigger cities, etc. We have a growing airport and plenty of highway access, and perhaps most important for an aging demographic, excellent health systems. What we don’t have is an abundance of places to live near the things that make us interesting and different. More westward sprawl doesn’t fix that. I know there is interest in adding more living space downtown. If someone proves that concept (in an area where land use and zoning already allow it and always have,) more demand and more supply will likely follow. On an entirely different topic, I reached out to Tampa Mayor Jane Castor yesterday following the mass shooting in Ybor City Saturday night, and following the even deadlier massacre in Lewiston, Maine last week. In Mayor Castor’s words, “We have to stop accepting these shootings.” She’s exactly correct. When we stop accepting random shootings as inevitable, perhaps we can seek changes. — On-topic: https://bit.ly/3QAX8ZZ (Mainstreet Daily News: Aging in Gainesville) https://bit.ly/3FBjp4x (Tampa Bay Times: Killings in Ybor City — Today I’m listening to Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt Kicker Five’s classic album The Original Monster Mash, for the obvious reason that it’s great. — Something to ponder: “We learn from failure, not from success!” -Dr. Van Helsing, via Bram Stoker’s Dracula — Today’s photo was taken on SW 13th Street this past Saturday evening. It’s one of my two favorite signs in our city.

💔 😢 Karachi's Urban Planning conveys a similar depressing, sad story. Karachi's 1st flyover took 10 years to complete in 1993; since then we have build 80 flyovers while neglecting Mass Transit in some of the most dense corridors on earth (Karachi Central has over 55,396 people per km²), in a country with lower car ownership than war torn Syria, Iraq (only 9.1% of households can afford a car; fewer still can afford to maintain it). Underpass like KPT in Clifton are even worse as they slice up a neighborhood such that an amenity that was a 2 minute, 100 meter walk away turns into a 2 KM car ride via choked traffic. They are also more prone to urban flooding during Monsoon. Signal free sprawling road corridors increase permanent death and disability risk for even Vigo, Prado, Fortuner owners and also are more likely to result in traffic bottlenecks (like at Shahrah-e-Faisal) such that ironically waiting a little at a few traffic lights, turn by turn, would create smoother traffic flow, reduced wait times overall for everyone. Tokyo, a city with 30,000,000 people, is build around a world class public transport network, with excellent zoning, land use choices that creates walkable access to major amenities, that we see in dense clusters of Pakistan like Karachi's Neelam Colony, and quiet, sleepy villages of rural Sindh, Punjab. China's great cities like Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing have a humungous population, large area size yet Pakistan's influential, affluential can learn a lot from our ally, and from Pakistanis' favorite tourist destination, Istanbul.