Chapel Hill sign
Chapel Hill sign by Adrian Cable is licensed under CC-BY-SA 2.0

Happy Monday! Below are some good reads that caught our eye over the past few days.

 

Bike racks have been installed at the early voting site in Carrboro

Thank you to Susan Romaine and the Town of Carrboro for making this happen.

National Zoning Atlas to demystify America’s patchwork of codes

Cornell University’s Legal Constructs Lab has announced the launch of a National Zoning Atlas, which will enable people to better understand zoning codes and the regulatory constraints embedded in them. When the National Zoning Atlas is complete, it will enable comparisons across jurisdictions, illuminate regional and statewide trends, and strengthen national planning for housing production, transportation infrastructure, and climate response. (National Zoning Atlas / Cornell University)

How to Calm a Street, Starting with Your Own Anger

The piece details how a neighborhood in Bellingham, WA created their own traffic-calming infrastructure. “They built curb “bump outs” to narrow the roadway, consistent with the city’s design guidelines, but with vinyl pylons, traffic cones, chalk, and flowers instead of concrete. It cost them $250.” (Jay Stange / Strongtowns)

From the archives: The Chapel Hill Ledger, May 11, 1878Town Commissioners, the first thing for the newly elected commissioners to do, is to overhaul the accounts of its town officers. The people of Chapel Hill wish to know for what they pay taxes, and we hope the commissioners will furnish us with an itemized account of all the receipts and disbursements during the last year. We have a law forbidding the building

Town Commissioners, the first thing for the newly elected commissioners to do, is to overhaul the accounts of its town officers. The people of Chapel Hill wish to know for what they pay taxes, and we hope the commissioners will furnish us with an itemized account of all the receipts and disbursements during the last year. We have a law forbidding the buildingTown Commissioners, the first thing for the newly elected commissioners to do, is to overhaul the accounts of its town officers. The people of Chapel Hill wish to know for what they pay taxes, and we hope the commissioners will furnish us with an itemized account of all the receipts and disbursements during the last year. We have a law forbidding the building of hog pens on the streets, and we wish to see this law put into force. Our village is by nature one of the most beautiful in the State, and the streets should be repaired, ditches cleaned out, trees trimmed up and wells cleaned out. The culvert in front of Mr. McCauley’s store ought to be cleaned of the accumulated rubbish which prevents the passage of the water and causes an overflow on the streets and sidewalks when it rains. If the hogs are allowed to run at large, they need this mud hole to wallow in, and if one of these nuisances is removed, we hope others will follow.

We need a new set of town laws. It is really a literary curiosity to read the present statutes of Chapel Hill.

A gentleman remarked to us the other day, ‘Our town laws are a wonder. They are really worth going to see. You may talk of Schliemann excavating in Rome, of the hunt for the inscription on the tomb of Agamemmnon, of deciphering the hieroglyphics on the Egyptian obelisk, but to translate these laws into sense and decency of expression is a task which no explorer into language would undertake.’ City alderman, town commissioners, city fathers, give us a sample of what you can do.

Melody Kramer is a Peabody-award winning journalist whose work has appeared on NPR and member stations around the country, as well as in publications ranging from National Geographic to Esquire Magazine....