Zoning Update: SB 9 and SB 10
In 2021, the California Legislature passed two bills to address hurdles to small scale housing development by property owners and upzoning urbanized, developable land by planning departments. Together, the bills represent creative housing policies that reflect clever resourcefulness on the part of lawmakers.
UX: CTTransit‘s Local Bus Service
As a mobility policy nerd, I set out to investigate the user experience of being a rider of Connecticut’s buses.
Connecticut’s transit system is…in need of some very real updates. Rail infrastructure and highway repairs are both expensive and beneficial only to users of those transportation mean.
Connecticut has buses. They are operational. How do they work? What are some cost-effective, common-sense ways to enhance the ridership experience?
Designing Around Debate: Leveraging the crowd to design compromise
Given: in cities across the US, socio-political tensions rise at the mere thought that potential economic development could lead to rent hikes, gentrification, and displacement down the road, cf protests around Amazon’s HQ2 in LIC.
Challenge: is there a way to leverage the momentum of the crowd to proactively innovate around the development-displacement divide?
Empirical Research: POS Infrastructure makes placemaking a walk in the park
Research Question: Is placemaking as easy as dropping a point-of-sale terminal and some chairs in a park?
Experiment: set up patio tables in an empty park, sell coffee & iced tea with a Square terminal, and see if people come and hang out where they otherwise wouldn’t.
Storytelling: Adobe Creative documents identity and place in the US
Storytelling: How does your sense of “home” frame your identity? Your ability to love? Your fear of displacement?
Adobe Creative Resident Aundre Larrow traveled across America to document micro-stories & macro-factors about place and belonging.
Stories From Here Photo Project
Katherine’s story: on displacement, development, and the importance of neighborhood ––>
Idea Validation: Social experiments over Brunch
Research Question: Can the just setting and idea of “Sunday Brunch” build community among strangers? Can the act of breaking bread help us overcome suspicions about each other?
Experiment: open a pop-up brunch restaurant in an empty storefront, invite everyone in town to a communal brunch table, observe first-time interactions.
Katherine McComic 