Monthly Archives: April 2015

Traffic Proposal: Self Driving Car Infastructure

Start planning now for a self driving car / autonomous infrastructure. Development of new roadways will take years and will be costly. Let’s just jump to what is coming and be ahead of the curve.

Wappoo Cut Bridge

Blow up the draw bridge. In its place put in a permanent bridge with bike lanes.

Chicken partner

If I were mayor I would encourage partnerships between local restaurants and individuals or small businesses that are raising chickens for eggs. Each restaurant would save the produce they currently have to throw away (waste of a good resource) and the individuals would agree to a pickup schedule. Free disposal, free chicken food, less waste. […]

Some Art Ideas from Miami

IfYouWereMayor.com is very keen to know how creative Charlestonians can be, since our research has found that Arts & Culture is one of the top five categories that make a city livable.  As we countdown to the Art Matters Mayoral Forum, organized by the Charleston Regional Arts Alliance, (and scheduled for June 9th at the […]

Control the Budget for Your Neighborhood!

A recent article in the New York Times (you can read it here) covers a rather new development in local governance called Participatory Budgeting.  The process, which has found its way into several US and Canadian cities, began in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in 1989.  The concept has residents determine how to spend portions of […]

No More Single-Use Plastic Bags on IOP

Isle of Palms residents love our sea turtles. But plastic bags often end up in the ocean where sea turtles or other sea life ingest them, injuring or killing the animal. We all know that most of those single-use plastic bags don’t get recycled. There are recyclable and biodegradable alternatives readily available. Moving away from […]

Make bus stops handy and comfortable

I like the beautification idea, but all bus stops should have a bench with a roof for shelter from the sun and rain, a map with a bus schedule, and a trash can.

Fighting Cynicism for a Stronger Community

A lot can happen in a city during the course of a week.  At IfYouWereMayor.com we’ve been taking a bit of inventory at this psychological milestone of Passover and Easter in the “holy city.” Waking up from the region’s relative slumber of winter is a heady, dusty, and sneezy time.  The seasonal changes bring farmers’ […]

HARNESSING TIDAL POWER

In Ireland they have successfully harnessed the tides for power. Forget about drilling/spilling in our oceans and fracking our lands. The greatest re-newable resource is all around us here. Silent, invisible, predictable, cost-effective and in harmony with the environment. Let’s be the FIRST city in America to MOVE, let’s be business and environmentally progressive and […]

The Charleston Brand?

Henry Grabar writes, in his most recent Science of Cities column for the online magazine Next Cities (here), that some researchers are trying to reduce a city’s image to data points. Their thinking is to develop a metric that captures a city’s image precisely, so the “brand” can be used to attract various audiences – […]