Curb Space as Urban Infrastructure Budget

Both pieces treat urban transport as a problem of scarce public infrastructure and tradeoffs: Regan & Kahn show fare changes alone don’t deliver speed/reliability or modal shift at scale, which reinforces the 'curb budget' argument that cities must manage physical space, service quality, and funding priorities (not just price) to achieve climate and access goals.

Noah Smith highlights mayoral moves (e.g., Daniel Lurie’s PermitSF ordinances and Zohran Mamdani’s pledge) to remove permit fees for sidewalk tables, storefront signage, and similar street‑facing uses — a direct instance of treating curb/frontage rules and permitting as a budgeted urban asset that determines small‑business viability.

Both pieces reframe urban service tradeoffs as a budgeted allocation of scarce public assets: the CTA bailout article documents a political choice to expand service and spending despite falling demand, which parallels the 'curb budget' idea that cities must explicitly allocate limited public space and resources (e.g., parking vs. containers vs. transit frequency) rather than assume unlimited options.

The newsletter’s 'ugly buildings' take is about how design/aesthetics affect neighborhood acceptance of housing; while that idea is more about visual politics than curb budgets, it connects to the broader argument that very concrete, spatial trade‑offs (how blocks are used or look) determine housing feasibility and political choices.

The ProPublica investigation implies a similar governance lesson: public lands are a limited public asset that functions like an infrastructure budget and requires explicit allocation tradeoffs (ecology, taxpayer cost, private benefit). Treating grazing allotments as an unaccounted subsidy obscures the true budgetary and ecological constraints, just as the 'curb budget' frame clarified urban resource tradeoffs.

The Central Park proposal to convert drives into an e‑vehicle/delivery superhighway is a dispute over allocating finite public right‑of‑way to competing uses (pedestrians vs. electric mobility), echoing the existing idea that the curb/drive is an explicit, budgeted urban asset that determines feasibility and tradeoffs.

Zipcar’s withdrawal reduces shared vehicle supply and will alter curb/parking dynamics in UK cities; the company explicitly cites rising energy costs and an expanded London congestion charge as financial pressures—illustrating why cities must treat curb allocation, charging access, and transport subsidies as budgeted infrastructure choices rather than incidental regime details.

The article highlights how depot siting and curb/adjacent land use (charging depots near residences) produce hard tradeoffs—noise, traffic, lighting—showing the same 'curb/space budget' logic: AV logistics compete with residential needs and municipal asset allocation.

The article exemplifies the broader pattern that physical infrastructure (here, jail capacity) functions as a binding 'budget' for policy: closing Rikers without replacement converts a planning/permits decision into a de facto policy outcome (decarceration/abolition) rather than a purely legislative one.

Like the 'curb budget' idea—which reframes contested public space as an explicitly allocated infrastructure budget—this article reframes public‑land grazing as a scarce land‑use budget mismanaged by law and agency capacity: the 2014 auto‑renewal rule effectively reallocated oversight capacity away from ecological stewardship, analogous to treating curb allocation as a hidden constraint rather than an explicit planning choice. The actors are Congress (2014 mandate) and the Bureau of Land Management/Forest Service (agency implementation and data showing rising percentages of unchecked grazing).

The redesign proposal effectively reallocates finite park roadway capacity into prioritized lanes for different actors (pedestrians, moderate micromobility, high‑speed devices), illustrating the same notion that street/drive space is a scarce urban budget that requires explicit allocation decisions and trade‑offs—and that failure to treat it as such produces conflict and hidden costs.

The sanctuary forces an explicit accounting of scarce spatial assets (402 hectares, water availability) and tradeoffs—analogous to treating curb or urban land as a budgeted asset—highlighting that creating large conservation refuges requires explicit spatial budgeting, interagency coordination, and acceptance of opportunity costs.

Both pieces reframe physical property and its allocation as a structural political constraint that shapes policy choices: Kling’s essay argues land‑ownership norms channel citizens toward expecting government support (not laissez‑faire) for housing, while the existing idea treats the curb as a budgeted public asset; each shows how property regimes convert physical space into enduring policy politics.

Christian Wolmar’s critique about city‑center integration and the article’s note that hyperloop requires new access infrastructure ties to the idea that urban right‑of‑way and curb/terminal allocation — not just track or vehicle technology — will determine feasibility and political acceptability in dense European cities.

The NYC trash‑bin rollout analysis centers the curb as a constrained resource—trading off bins, parking, and bus/bike lanes—and explains the long timeline as an interagency coordination problem, exactly the 'curb budget' frame.

DSNY’s 2023 findings: 89% of street segments viable under a 25% curb cap; ~150,000 parking spaces removed; containerization reaches ~77% of residential tonnage amid DOT bus/bike lane expansions and FDNY access concerns.