Portland celebrates another safe year for cyclists, Hamburg goes car-free, San Francisco rents its curbs to tech buses, Houston’s got some wacky architecture, and L.A. is the city of the future—or a city in decline? It’s all in this week’s Urban Reads.

In 2013, the city of Portland, Oregon, reported zero bike fatalities—again. They also had zero bike fatalities in 1999, 2000, 2002, 2006, 2008, and 2010 [Bike Portland]

Hamburg, Germany—the tenth-largest city in Europe—just unveiled a plan to become essentially car-free in 20 years [Switchboard]

“I’m not certain I’ve become an example to anyone or necessarily changed a whole lot for the better. But I’m still here. I go to bed and I wake up every day in Detroit, in a house I built with my own hands. Sometimes success means just holding on.” Why this guy bought a house in Detroit for $500 [BuzzFeed]

San Francisco will charge the Silicon Valley’s tech buses curbside rent to the tune of about $100,000 a year [Atlantic Cities]

Sweaty armpits and spilled coffee never gets old: People running for the bus in slow motion [The Bold Italic]

A new study reports that Los Angeles is a city in decline, suffering from “a crisis of leadership and direction” [Los Angeles Times]

In other news, Los Angeles is America’s next great city, “a Great City in the heart of the City That Destroyed Cities” [GQ]

“How can we use architectural tools and insights in order to enhance…territorial peace agreements? How do you create a border within a city that does not really destroy the city?” Two Israeli architects started a firm that offers “resolution planning,” the idea that design and architecture can be tools for peace [Curbed]

Seven buildings and neighborhoods that would never fly anywhere but Houston [Next City]

Opening image courtesy of Maya Sugarman—who you should be following on Instagram. She snapped it while on assignment for KPCC assembling this then-and-now gallery of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. Got an Instagram of your own you’d like us to use in our next link round-up? Tag it #gizmodocities and we’ll be in touch if we want to post.