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Warming planet, too many miles.  Jeff Chiu/AP Uber and Lyft Could Do a Lot More for the Planet LAURA BLISS   APR 30, 2018 Carbon offsets and bike-sharing services are great. But the ride-hailing industry still hasn’t confronted the heart of the problem it has created. SHARE TWEET Earlier this month, Lyft  announced  that all passenger rides will be carbon neutral, indefinitely. The plan is to cancel out vehicle emissions by investing in carbon offset projects, while eventually folding electric and autonomous vehicles into its fleet. The move bolsters the company’s image as a greener, more socially conscious alternative to Uber, its major competitor, which has not made such a pledge. But any company that casts itself as a model of sustainability should draw extra scrutiny. There, it’s not clear that Lyft—or Uber, or any ride-hailing company—stacks up as a good environmental citizen in the broader landscape of transportation, the sector that recent...

A transportation enforcement worker watches ride-hailing vehicles pull into their spaces at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport on March 31, 2016, the first day they could legally pick up and drop off customers there.  Ted S. Warren/AP Don’t Enact a ‘Lazy’ Ride-Hailing Tax SAM ADAMS   JUL 25, 2018 A former mayor of Portland, Oregon, outlines what a smart ride-hailing tax looks like for American cities. SHARE TWEET There’s a transportation revolution now underway that will likely disrupt our cities as much as—or even more than—the widespread proliferation of personal cars that began in the 1920s. Back then, cities weren’t ready for the rise of automobiles; they were unable to act or waited too long to establish the kind of regulations and policies that could have mitigated the  negative effects  that car ownership unleashed on urban spaces. We can’t afford to do that for this new round of transportation disruption. Ride-hailing services like Uber...

Geoff Boeing Visualizing the Hidden ‘Logic’ of Cities DAVID MONTGOMERY   JUL 26, 2018 Some cities’ roads follow regimented grids. Others twist and turn. See it all on one chart. SHARE TWEET In Chicago or Beijing, any given street is likely to take you north, south, east, or west. But good luck following the compass in Rome or Boston, where streets grew up organically and seemingly twist and and turn at random. Geoff Boeing calls this structure the “logic” of a city, and he would know: An urban planning scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, Boeing  developed a tool to let anyone visualize this urban logic in seconds . It works by using an old geography technique: the “polar” or circular chart. Boeing’s tool calculates what percentage of a city’s roads run along each section of a compass, and plots it on a circular bar chart. The island of Manhattan, for example, runs from south-southwest to north-northeast, and most of its streets are paralle...

Charlotte City council members vote 6-5 to continue a bid to host the 2020 Republican National Convention at a meeting in Charlotte, N.C., Monday, July 16, 2018.   Chuck Burton/AP Why Charlotte (and Only Charlotte) Wants the 2020 RNC PAM KELLEY   JUL 26, 2018 A willingness to host such a big but unwanted event speaks to the ambition and insecurity that has long characterized North Carolina’s largest city. SHARE TWEET In 1791, after spending one night in Charlotte during his tour of the South, President George Washington dismissed the town, describing it in his diary as “a trifling place.” This early civic humiliation still gets mentioned in Charlotte, perhaps because it speaks to the ambition and insecurity that has long characterized North Carolina’s largest city. It might also help explain the political drama that unfolded recently when this Democratic majority-minority city, finding itself on the verge of winning its bid to host the 2020 Republican Nati...

Madison McVeigh/CityLab CityLab University: Inclusionary Zoning BENJAMIN SCHNEIDER   JUL 17, 2018 You’ve seen the term. But do you really know what it means? Here’s your essential primer. SHARE TWEET If you’ve hung around the CityLab site, sat through a City Council meeting, or hobnobbed with a housing developer, you’ve probably run across the term “inclusionary zoning.” You might even think you know what it means. But wait, do you? Don’t worry. We’ve got you covered. Welcome to the pilot edition of “CityLab University,” a resource for understanding some of the most important concepts related to cities and urban policy. If you like this feature, have constructive feedback, or would like to see a similar explainer on other topics, drop us a line at  editors@citylab.com . KEY POINTS Inclusionary zoning is a policy that was   first developed in the 1970s in response to exclusionary and often racially segregated “snob zoning.” It’s a   popular ...