Video: Accessibility is the Biggest Issue for American Cities

Pictured: Associate Professor Nicholas D. Bloom, left, and Professor John di Domenico.

In a Facebook Live session, Nicholas D. Bloom, Ph.D., associate professor in NYIT School Interdisciplinary Studies and Education, and John di Domenico, M.Arch., professor in NYIT School of Architecture and Design, talk about the biggest issues facing American urban infrastructure.

“The biggest issue is maintaining accessibility,” says di Domenico. “When the cities are accessible, then people have options. They have options for housing and opportunities for jobs and employment; for education, for enrichment—cultural enrichment.”

The ability to move around a city and have access to all it has to offer is vital. “When you surrender that access, [when] you don’t have the access, you begin to see equity fall apart,” he says.

“U.S. cities exist basically in an American context which is overwhelmingly based on access for cars,” adds Bloom. “When we think about that, we think ‘Well, that’s just sort of how life is,’ but that has enormous public policy implications.”

In the United States, there is almost no limit on what will be spent on roads. “When you mention something like a Maglev [magnetic levitation high-speed train], people go that’s crazy expensive,” says Bloom. “But when you look at the embedded costs in something like our interstate system, the road network itself and so forth, there’s many billions if not trillions of dollars at this point embedded in that.”

Watch the video below for more on their discussion.