ST. STEPHEN’S COMMUNITY HOUSE
sits among single-family homes, recycling
plants, wrecking yards, shipping centers, and
parks, all occupying the Linden neighborhood
of Columbus, Ohio. Begun as a Catholic social
center in 1919, it has morphed into a gather-
ing place that helps local residents connect
with jobs, medi cal care, supermarkets, and
transportation. And just as in its early days, the
center also helps them connect with one an-
other. So it is that at 5:30 p.m. on a Tuesday in
October, about 150 people gather to hear city
officials present a reinvention scheme. Even
the standing- room section is crowded.
A screen displays a slide deck for a 10-point
strategy—called the One Linden Plan—to
improve this historically underserved low-
income area. Onstage, hip-high cubes show
photos of happy kids clinging to smiling
parents. While Linden is just a few miles from
the city center, transportation options from
here— to jobs, doctors, even grocery stores—
remain mostly limited, slow, inaccessible,
unreliable, or a combination of those factors.
One Linden aims to change that.
In Columbus, as in many cities, the people
who would benefit most from public-transit
improvements—people with lower incomes,
minorities, residents with disabilities, the
elderly—often have difficulty accessing it. The
world might be stuffed with bike-shares and
scooters, but trendy wheeled devices serve
primarily the young, solo, and able- bodied.
Meanwhile, as urban areas get more expensive,
poorer residents are often pushed even farther
out. Cities struggle to get everyone from place
to place without clogging freeways, spewing
air pollution, consuming fossil fuels, or further
disenfranchising anyone.In places like Linden, the biggest problem is often getting
to or from a transit station in the first place. Urban planners
call this the “first-mile/last-mile problem.” Here, remedies
will include a trip-planning app that incorporates all avail-
able modes of transportation, whether scooters, bikes, or
ride-shares. Most of these options typically require smart-
phones linked to credit-card accounts, leaving out portions
of the population that have neither. But several of the pro-
posals detailed in One Linden don’t require a bank account
or phone plan. Officials also promise transportation hubs
that link the different transport modes, and offer extra help
for pregnant women and people with cognitive disabilities.
In the auditorium, the residents are attentive,
hopeful— and dubious. It’s not the first time they’ve
heard great- on- paper strategies. Many stay on the page.66 SPRING 2019 • POPSCI.COM