Supreme Court building by Beatrice Murch licensed under Creative Commons.

The issue of inclusionary zoning may make its way to the Surpreme Court. Seattle passes zoning reform law. Trump creates council to look at deregulating zoning.

SCOTUS nudged to fight inclusionary zoning: This month, the Pacific Legal Foundation, a California-Based law firm, asked the Supreme Court to take up a case challenging the constitutionality of inclusionary zoning. This form of zoning regulation typically reserves a certain number of units in new housing for more affordable households, but conservatives argue that this violates the Fifth Amendment. (Rachel M. Cohen | The Intercept)

Rendezvous with density: Seattle, following Minneapolis’ lead in April, enacted a zoning reform law. The legislation was a scaled back version, however, with just 27 neighborhoods slated for upzoning instead of the originally planned 50. In just the past decade, more than 115,000 people have moved to the area, but more than two-thirds of the city is zoned for single-family zoning. (J. Brian Charles | Governing)

Trump wants to deregulate zoning: President Trump signed an executive order this week establishing a “White House Council on Eliminating Regulatory Barriers to Affordable Housing.” This entity will study exclusionary local zoning laws that block multifamily housing units. Critics are afraid the administration will use the council to strip regulations that protect fair housing. (Jeff Andrews | Curbed)

Case for not building more highways: Recently, the Kentucky Transportation Cabinet unveiled I-Move Kentucky, a $180-million project expanding I-265 and I-71, in addition to other highway expansion studies. Louisville is interestingly aggressive in its highway infrastructure, while other cities across the US mull tearing down, not building up, their highways. A $2.8B expansion of I-10 in Houston found that after widening to 23 lanes, travel times have actually worsened. (Porter Stevens | Leo Weekly)

Toronto mulls Quayside smart city: Toronto got a detailed look on Monday of plans for Quayside, a waterfront development spearheaded by Sidewalk Labs. The project would be a smart city, relying on vast ranges of data collection and tracking anything from park bench usage to the speed of pedestrians crossing the street. Many have been skeptical of the tech company’s use of personal data and its upholding of privacy. (Ian Austen | New York Times)

Quote of the Week

“Today we’re debating scooters, but in the years ahead, we’ll be talking about data on autonomous vehicles, flying taxis and other modes of travel that haven’t even been invented yet. By putting safeguards in place now, we’ll have the infrastructure we’ll need to protect our lives, property and privacy.”

Janette Sadik-Khan in Bloomberg talking about cities collecting data for the future of mobility.

This week on the podcast, ITS America President and CEO Shailen Bhatt talks about potential Intelligent Transportation futures