Smart Growth Around America

For a few years now, EPA and the Smart Growth Network have been sponsoring a regular series of terrific lectures on smart growth and related issues here in Washington, D.C. at the National Building Museum. They’ve had well-known authors, innovators and special guests from all over the country come to talk about different aspects of the built environment and how we grow. They’ve been recording the lectures and making audio available after the lecture, but it’s about to get much more accessible.

From an email we got this week:

NEW FEATURE: Smart Growth Speaker Series Goes National

Through a partnership between US EPA, National Building Museum, and Public Radio International’s “Living on Earth”, many of our Smart Growth Speakers can now be heard on your favorite local public radio station. Beginning on July 10, 2009, Living on Earth will feature an interview and program with our most recent Smart Growth Speaker, Sophie Lambert, Director of LEED-ND for the US Green Building Council. Check your local radio schedule for program times, or listen online at www.loe.org.

If you do happen to be here in DC, don’t miss the next Smart Growth Speaker Series in DC tomorrow (Friday), July 17. Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk will be discusssing retrofitting the suburbs. More information at www.smartgrowth.org/audio

Posted by Steve Davis on Thursday, July 9th, 2009 | No Comments »
Tags: Announcements, EPA

Smart Growth America State Policy Director Will Schroeer was on Fox Business this morning, discussing our 120-day report from Minneapolis.

Posted by Steve Davis on Wednesday, July 8th, 2009 | No Comments »
Tags: Economic Stimulus, State Policy, Transportation, Video

The report we released yesterday analyzing the first 120 days of transportation stimulus spending — with the help and leadership of many state partner groups — has been getting some good media coverage from coast to coast. Here’s a roundup of coverage from the first full day of the report release. Articles that have quotes from or mentions of state partners or SGA coalition members have the name in italics with each story. If we’re missing something, be sure to let us know in the comments.

Posted by Steve Davis on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 | No Comments »
Tags: Economic Stimulus, SGA in the News, SGA partner, State Policy

Smart Growth America president Geoff Anderson was a guest on Fox Business this morning, discussing the our report analyzing the first 120 days of transportation stimulus spending. Click here to watch the video.

Posted by Steve Davis on Monday, June 29th, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Tags: Economic Stimulus, Geoff Anderson, SGA in the News, Video

Download the full report (1mb pdf)

Within the $787 billion stimulus bill that became law in February, Congress provided states and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) with $26.6 billion in flexible funds for transportation projects. Today marks 120 days from the apportionment of the funds to the states.

The 120-day mark is significant because it is the point by which states and territories are required to have obligated 50 percent of the flexible money granted them for transportation projects by the federal government. The money is meant to stimulate the economy, but also — in the language of the Act — “to invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits.”

The stimulus funding arrives at a time of embarrassingly large backlogs of road and bridge repairs, inadequate and underfunded public transportation systems, and too-few convenient, affordable transportation options.

Did states use their flexible money to make progress on these pressing needs?

After analyzing project descriptions provided by states and MPOs, Smart Growth America found forward looking states and communities that used the stimulus money as flexibly as possible, repairing roads and bridges and making the kinds of smart, 21st century transportation investments that their communities need to support strong economic growth.

Other states and communities missed this golden opportunity to create jobs while making progress on their most pressing transportation needs. These states spent their precious funds on building new roads rather than repairing existing roads, and ignored the chance to spend the money flexibly on the kinds of options that their residents really want — like public transportation or streets safe for walking and biking — leaving their communities stuck in traffic and stuck in the past. …CONTINUE READING »

Posted by Steve Davis on Monday, June 29th, 2009 | 9 Comments »
Tags: 120 days, Economic Stimulus, public transportation, State Policy, Transit, Transportation

While states may typically be excellent at spending federal money quickly, the big question is: are states also good at spending federal money wisely?

Within the $787 billion stimulus bill that became law in February, Congress provided states and Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) with $26.6 billion for transportation projects. States and MPOs were given considerable flexibility in how to use these new funds, but with one catch: they have to use it quickly. The first half of the funding has to be committed within 120 days, or Monday, June 29th.

All 55 US states and territories have officially obligated half of their stimulus funds ahead of schedule — $19 billion in stimulus money promised toward 5,300 transportation projects nationwide.

“Every state not only met the 120-day deadline, they beat it,” said Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. “This is a testament to the fact that we’re putting money out there quickly and helping to get the economy back on track.”

Smart Growth America, in conjunction with its state coalition partners, will be releasing a report Monday detailing how well each state is handling its transportation stimulus money. Are the projects creating jobs while making smart investments in transportation? How transparent and accountable are the funding choices? Are the states making progress on their pressing transportation needs?

While some states are doing great work, many are not taking proper advantage of federal stimulus money — spending it quickly on new highway capacity, ignoring lengthy (and often dangerous) repair backlogs for their roads, bridges, and transit systems, and neglecting investments in the other modes of transportation that their state needs and residents demand to keep them from being stuck in traffic without choices.

Check back Monday to see how well your state is faring with this huge opportunity to get people working while making smart transportation investments.

Update, 6/29/09: Read the report now!

Posted by Sara Wolfson on Friday, June 26th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Tags: Economic Stimulus, New Reports, Publications, SGA partner, Transportation

Administrator of the EPA Lisa Jackson Visits Barrett Originally uploaded by Barrett Web Coordinator

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson at Barrett Elementary School in Arlington, Virginia back in April.

There’s some exciting news out of Washington, DC to report this morning. US EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson announced that the US EPA is joining with the departments of transportation and housing and urban development in a special partnership to work together to support smart growth and more livable, sustainable communities across America.

Download the full SGA press release.

It’s a bold new initiative, doing something a bit unorthodox in federal circles — working together across agency boundaries towards a greater purpose.

In the words of Administrator Jackson today before the Senate Banking, Finance and Urban Affairs Committee, “where you live affects how you get around, and how you get around often affects where you live.  Both decisions affect our environment.  Working together rather than independently, our three agencies can improve the environment, the transportation system, and homes and communities throughout the United States.”

“Government agencies tend to focus exclusively on their own issue areas,” said SGA President Geoff Anderson. “But the issues of housing, transportation and the environment are so deeply linked that any truly effective solutions will touch all three of these agencies.”

The partnership is designed to bring the three agencies together to “help American families in all communities — rural, suburban and urban — gain better access to affordable housing, more transportation options, and lower transportation costs.”

It’s not the first we’ve heard this year about government thinking outside the box to make sure that growth and development happens in the most sustainable way, providing Americans with good access to affordable housing and convenient transportation options for getting around.

Back in Feburary, we noticed a speech by brand-new HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, where he noted that it won’t be enough for HUD to just lead the way with energy efficiency in construction. Where those homes go is just as important.

HUD can catalyze the way housing is built and renovated across the residential market overall that will have a dramatic effect on emissions. But focusing on housing is not enough. We must focus on location efficiency, and HUD must be the leader within the administration on this issue.

According to the release, “DOT, HUD and EPA have created a high-level interagency partnership to better coordinate federal transportation, environmental protection, and housing investments and to identify strategies that:”

• Provide more transportation choices. Develop safe, reliable and economical transportation choices in order to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote public health.
• Promote equitable, affordable housing. Expand location and energy efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.
• Increase economic competitiveness. Enhance economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services and other basic needs by workers as well as expanded business access to markets.
• Support existing communities. Target federal funding toward existing communities to increase community revitalization, the efficiency of public works investments and safeguard rural landscapes.
• Leverage federal investment. Cooperatively align federal policies and funding to remove barriers, leverage funding and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth.
• Value communities and neighborhoods. Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods – rural, urban or suburban.

These agencies working together is a promising sign. “These goals will help all three agencies in their partnership to do the same thing SGA is trying to do: make our growth, development and transportation fair, equitable, environmentally sustainable and affordable for all Americans,” said Geoff Anderson.

These goals sound laudable enough, but how will these three huge agencies actually make this happen? One initiative they’re proposing that would dramatically alter the landscape of federal policy would be considering how location — and access to transportation options — affects housing affordability.

Redefine housing affordability and make it transparent.  The partnership will develop federal housing affordability measures that include housing and transportation costs and other expenses that are affected by location choices.  Although transportation costs now approach or exceed housing costs for many working families, federal definitions of housing affordability do not recognize the strain of soaring transportation costs on homeowners and renters who live in areas isolated from work opportunities and transportation choices.  The partnership will redefine affordability to reflect those costs, improve the consideration of the cost of utilities and provide consumers with enhanced information to help them make housing decisions.

Smart Growth America applauds this step by the federal government to work together to solve some of our country’s most pressing issues. Only by working across agency borders will we have any chance of addressing issues like climate change, housing affordability, access to transportation options and ensuring equality and opportunity for all, regardless of where we live or what color our skin is.

Posted by Steve Davis on Tuesday, June 16th, 2009 | 3 Comments »
Tags: DOT, EPA, Housing, HUD, sustainability, Transportation

This view of a mega high school campus from the air shows the impact of location and size on a community. The parking lot is the size of the building, and even residents of an adjacent neighborhood (to the right) that should be able to walk, likely have to drive to the school. SGA Photo

Huge, sprawling “mega-schools” built at the edges of town aren’t required by law in Minnesota.

But minimum acreage recommendations from the Minnesota Department of Education have forced local communities into a one-size-fits-all approach, resulting in new schools that are unwalkable and unconnected to the rest of their communities.

Historic neighborhood schools have been abandoned. Schools and families are burdened with excessive transportation costs of driving or busing kids to school, because it is impossible for kids to walk or bike to the new large schools on the edges of town.

On July 1st, this is going to change in Minnesota.

Due to the hard work of SGA coalition member 1000 Friends of Minnesota and other advocates, the new Minnesota Education Omnibus Law (HF 2), signed by Governor Tim Pawlenty two weeks ago, includes provisions to eliminate minimum acreage requirements for schools, and to remove the bias against renovating, rather than rebuilding, old schools.  The law goes into effect at the end of the month.

John Bailey of 1000 Friends of Minnesota refers to the old rules as “arbitrary and outdated state-wide requirements.” These state rules required extraordinarily large lots for schools — 40 acres for a middle school, and 60 for a high school, for instance — no matter what the desire of the local community.  And as schools aged, the laws were stacked in favor of constructing new schools on large lots rather than renovating the old ones, even if renovation was a cheaper option preferred by the community.

The acreage “recommendations” resulted in historic neighborhood schools in walkable locations often being shuttered in favor of new mega-campuses on the edge of town, removing the option of children walking and biking to a smaller school in their neighborhood.

The new provisions are part of a larger push to align transportation and land use policies with Minnesota’s green initiatives — something supported by a broad segment of the populace. But a more central issue at hand was the ability of localities to make school siting decisions on their own — without the state treating the issue the same regardless of the size, location or preference of the community.

“We had broad consensus across party lines that this requirement was an unwarranted intrusion on local control,” said Bailey. “Local communities are reasonably intelligent folks; they can figure out where to put a school.”

Does your state still have minimum acreage requirements?

The Council of Educational Facility Planners (CEFPI) revised their “bible” for school builders, “The Guide for Planning Educational Facilities,” in 2004, removing all minimum acreage requirements for schools. The American Planning Association pointed out that because “a one-size-fits-all approach is dated and can work counter to a variety of goals, the new guide encourages communities to analyze their needs in order to make appropriate siting decisions.”

Even though CEFPI has changed course, many states still have these outdated recommendations on the books.

Posted by Sara Wolfson on Tuesday, June 9th, 2009 | No Comments »
Tags: Children & Schools, local control, Local development, Minnesota

Surface Parking Lot, Minneapolis, MN Originally uploaded by Zach K

When the parking tail wags the use dog: Some large surface parking lots in Downtown, Minneapolis (but not at the brewery.)

Far too often, thoughtless minimum parking requirements drive development decisions, to the detriment of just about everyone — a theme best developed by UCLA’s Don Shoup in his terrific book, The High Cost of Free Parking. Another story, as both data point and lesson:

Our favorite local micro-brewery gives tours; we went last Friday evening, where we heard this story.

The brewer’s parents owned and ran for many years a small industrial abrasives plant in a first-ring Minneapolis suburb. After running a hobby brewery in one corner of the factory, the brewer proposed to his parents: “Our sales are declining; the future for small industrial abrasives plants isn’t what it used to be. I’d like to turn the building into a brewery.” With their OK, he set out to get permits.

The prospective brewer/owner wrote a long proposal to the city addressing why the brewery would be a) good for the city, and b) not cause problems with water demand, electricity demand, sewage, odors, traffic — you name it.

“I was,” he said, “prepared for just about any question I could imagine.”

At the City Council meeting, the assembled counselors leafed through the proposal. Then one leaned into the mic: “This is all fine. But what about parking?” As the brewer tells the story: “I had learned everything I could about odors. But parking hadn’t crossed my mind.”

Fortunately, he had an advocate on the council who suggested “Let’s cross that bridge if this becomes as successful as he hopes.”

Zoning change and permit approved.

On the night he told this story to us, the tour had in fact filled the parking lot to overflowing. The brewery doesn’t run a pub or a restaurant. Their six employees don’t take up much parking space; several ride their bikes, giving the lie to the idea that no one rides a bike to a job in an industrial zone. But most Fridays, they give tours that far, far outstrip their meager on-site parking. So, people park along the side of the industrial-park-width streets and in the lots of the neighboring plants. “We give ‘em beer”, explains the brewer, by way of compensation.

Now imagine the counter-factual:

The city follows standard, recommended practice, and demands that an aspiring brewer provide enough on-site parking to accommodate peak yearly demand — those 52 days a year with tours. The abrasives plant is hemmed in; even if the aspiring brewer had money for a new parking lot, which he does not, there is no place to put it. The plant closes; it becomes another statistic of industrial decline. The tax base shrinks. There is only bad beer. People become surly.

The standard disclaimers to this kind of economic story apply. Nonetheless, I find it a wonderful story of how flexibility on a point — parking — on which flexibility is so rarely granted, a) allowed a real success, and b) spawned an efficient market-based solution.

(Although I’d love to give the brewery the the credit, name withheld in case trading beer for Friday evening parking isn’t 100% legal for some reason.)

Posted by Will Schroeer on Monday, June 8th, 2009 | No Comments »
Tags: Minneapolis, Minnesota, parking, Planning, Transportation

Update, Monday 6/8: All free copies have been given away. You can purchase the DVD at the NCI website.

We’re giving away this DVD to the first 500 people that register. Click here to get your free copy.

“Just off Florida’s west coast, south of the Caloosahatchee River, there’s a tale of two cities. Downtown Fort Myers is humming with progress, budding with the fresh promise of revitalization, vibrant with possibilities. But just a few blocks away, it’s a very different tale. East Fort Myers is a community that feels forgotten. It’s a part of the Old Town, a part that’s seen more prosperous times in generations past. Now, wounded by economic hardship, crime, and a growing sense of hopelessness, this is a place desperate for change.”

— From the DVD

Click here to receive your free copy of this DVD.

Citizens of all stripes are encouraged to get involved in the planning process in communities like East Fort Myers to be a part of bringing positive change. But how does the process work? And what can make it less painful to get everyone on the same page in a community?

In a town full of people and their myriad ideas to consider, it can seem impossible for better things to ever come to communities that need change the way places like East Fort Myers needs it — but that’s exactly what charrettes are built to handle.

This DVD places you into key moments within the seven-day East Fort Myers, FL charrette. Hear what participants are saying before and after the charrette and witness how the charrette team takes a project from a blank canvas all the way to a developed plan. The DVD also tells stories from Ocean Springs, MS — following the devastation of Hurricane Katrina —and Providence, RI.

A charrette is a collaboration between the citizenry, a city or town and all the experts hired to make community improvements. For anywhere between a few days and a week, designers, planners, environmental consultants, and others listen to what community residents want for the future of their town or city and try to condense it into one preferred plan. The system of workshops, open design studio, and public meetings allows for everyone’s voices to be heard, and for a plan of action that everyone to contribute to.

Here’s a brief preview:

Courtesy of the generous folks at the National Charrette Institute, Smart Growth America is offering a free DVD with the East Fort Myers story to the first 500 respondents. To find out more about the charrette system and see what community transformation can look like—register here to receive your free copy.

This is a story you won’t want to miss. Register now to get your copy, before supplies run out!

Posted by Sara Wolfson on Thursday, June 4th, 2009 | No Comments »
Tags: Announcements, Charrettes, Planning, Video

Today in Louisville, Kentucky, hundreds are taking part in the opening day of the second Reclaiming Vacant Properties Conference. The conference is a ray of hope in the midst of our housing and economic crises — and an incubator for the ideas and solutions that can bring prosperity back to the cities, communities and neighborhoods hit hard by abandonment and vacancy.

When the first conference took place in Pittsburgh more than a year and a half ago, the landscape of our country looked quite different. Foreclosure and vacancy were problems most associated with struggling older cities — though even at the time the foreclosure crisis was far more widespread than many perceived. Today, there’s hardly a community that hasn’t had to deal in some way with the issues brought on by foreclosure and abandonment. The solutions and strategies for change covered by this conference are more important than ever.

We’ll have some dispatches from the conference by the end of the week, but here is the release announcing the start of the conference this morning in Louisville, Kentucky. (The conference is organized by the National Vacant Properties Campaign, one of SGA’s projects.)

National Conference Assembles Key Practitioners and Experts to Address Challenges of Property Vacancy and Abandonment

LOUISVILLE, Ky. — Few communities have been immune to our nation’s foreclosure and economic crises. And the resulting ripple-effects of vacancy and abandonment in our nation threaten to undo decades of investment. In an effort to stem the tide, the nation’s leading foreclosure and vacant property reclamation experts will come together to discuss and share approaches to help communities address this growing problem at the national Reclaiming Vacant Properties: Building Leadership to Restore Communities conference in Louisville beginning June 1.

“Although many communities have faced long-term abandonment before, the current foreclosure and economic crises have dramatically changed the nature of the problem,” said Jennifer Leonard, the National Vacant Properties Campaign’s director, the primary convener of the conference. “It’s critical that we use these crises as an opportunity to develop and share new ways to create long-term and sustainable revitalization.”

Across America, abandoned buildings, foreclosed homes, and vacant lots lead to neighborhood blight, depress property values, reduce tax revenues, and discourage public and private investment needed for economic growth. In Palm Bay, Florida house prices have plummeted 27.3 percent since 2006 and in Cleveland, Ohio property values have dropped over 50 percent due the rise in foreclosures. The host-city of Louisville has over 5,400 privately-owned vacant structures and over 1,500 unimproved lots and city officials anticipate a continued rise in the number of vacant and abandoned properties.

The Reclaiming Vacant Properties conference has over 30 program sessions that focus on issues such as restoring neighborhood confidence, sustainable reuse of vacant land, and approaches to acquire and dispose of foreclosed property. It also features mobile workshops that introduce participants to some of Louisville’s successful revitalization efforts and the community and city leaders who made them happen. The conference is sponsored by the National Vacant Properties Campaign, with principal planning partners of the Metro Louisville Government and the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

Louisville Mayor, Jerry Abramson, is optimistic that by sharing innovative ideas we can plant the seeds of revitalization. “We’ve seen the number of vacant properties in our community double in the past 6 years – at a time when city budgets are tight as a result of rising health care costs, pension costs and the overall economic downturn; but by working in partnership, we can explore ways to tackle this crisis that are strategic…and don’t necessarily come with huge price tags.”

“The issue of vacant and foreclosed properties has a major impact on the economic well being of our nation,” said Maria G. Hampton, senior branch executive of the Louisville Branch of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. “The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis is proud to be a part of this important conference that brings nationally recognized leaders on this issue to Louisville.”

For information about the Reclaiming Vacant Properties conference please, visit the website at www.reclaimingvacantproperties.org

About the National Vacant Properties Campaign

The National Vacant Properties Campaign was created in 2003 to help communities prevent, manage, and successfully redevelop vacant and abandoned properties – all to create more vibrant, thriving neighborhoods. We believe that such efforts yield more affordable housing opportunities, major fiscal and economic development benefits, and reduced threats to our public health, safety, and the environment. The Campaign is led by Smart Growth America, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech, and the Genesee Institute. Find out more at www.vacantproperties.org.

About the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

With branches in Little Rock, Louisville and Memphis, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis serves the Eighth Federal Reserve District, which includes all of Arkansas, eastern Missouri, southern Indiana, southern Illinois, western Kentucky, western Tennessee and northern Mississippi. The St. Louis Fed is one of 12 regional Reserve Banks that, along with the Board of Governors in Washington, D.C., comprise the Federal Reserve System. As the nation’s central bank, the Federal Reserve System formulates U.S. monetary policy, regulates state-chartered member banks and bank holding companies, provides payment services to financial institutions and the U.S. government, and promotes community development and financial education.

Posted by Steve Davis on Monday, June 1st, 2009 | 1 Comment »
Tags: Announcements, press releases, Vacant Property

A new study, released by the Center for Housing Policy, compares housing costs in over 200 U.S. metropolitan areas with the wages earned by workers in 60 occupations — and finds that often, workers in key professions are unable to afford buying a house even after the recent drop in housing prices. Some in expensive areas or low-earning professions can’t reasonably afford to rent, either. In certain places, such workers even include police officers, Licensed Practical Nurses, and elementary school teachers.

Here are the numbers from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where I lived until recently. Perhaps because I grew up in New Jersey, I’d always thought of Lancaster as having cheap land and remarkably cheap houses. But according to the salaries that Lancaster workers receive, “cheap” doesn’t mean “affordable.”  This graph focused on five types of constructive workers, since these are jobs likely to be created by the stimulus.  None but the most highly paid — construction managers — can even begin to think of affording a home:

The numbers, bad as they are, are worse than they appear because the Center for Housing Policy’s definition of affordability is rent which does not exceed 30 percent of income. (Many families are spending well over 30% of their income to buy or rent a house.)

If you’ve been following this blog for a while, you probably know that affordability changes substantially when transportation enters the picture, as illustrated so eloquently by the Housing + Transportation Affordability Index powered by The Center for Neighborhood Technology, an SGA coalition member, and the Brookings Institution.

This tool takes into account that houses far away from jobs and businesses may be cheaper in outright costs but more expensive when the ‘hidden’ costs of transportation are factored in.  Measuring both housing and transportation costs together turns large swathes of land unaffordable. And for the most part, prices are falling the most in exurban counties with fewer jobs and expensive commutes to job centers, shopping and other daily needs.

The headlines may be full of news about falling home prices, and what a disaster this is for the market, but the truth is that lower home prices are still not low enough for many American families to afford to buy or rent.

Posted by Sara Wolfson on Friday, May 29th, 2009 | No Comments »
Tags: Affordability, Housing, New Reports

Freiburg-im-Brisgau - Quartier Vauban : commerces et immeuble Originally uploaded by adeupa de Brest

A walkable, car-free street in the upscale suburb of Vauban, Germany. The community has easy rail access into Freiburg.

With thrift the latest necessity in today’s economic struggles, people are not only trimming the fat from their budgets — they’re reconsidering what’s essential and what’s fat. According to a new national survey by the Pew Research Center, significantly more Americans now consider microwave ovens, television sets, home air conditioning, dishwashers, and clothes dryers to be luxuries than they did three years ago.

There is one item that 88% of Americans still say they can’t live without — the car. It’s an understandable sentiment. Take a look around much of America and it’s easy to understand why in most places, you are stuck if you don’t have a car.

But what if it didn’t have to be that way?

This article has made the rounds by now, but in Germany, according to a front-page New York Times article, the residents of the upscale suburb of Vauban have decided that they want to live nearly car-free lives. All streets except for the main thoroughfare are completely car-free, and cars can only be kept in one of the two car garages on the edges of town. With 5,500 residents within one square mile and easy access to public transportation, who needs their car regularly? Most families share cars for longer trips. Half of Vauban residents sold their personal cars to move there. A few similar projects are cropping up here in the United States as well, but nothing quite at the scale of Vauban.

Smart Growth America (and Transportation for America) communications director David Goldberg was quoted in the article about people looking for ways to drive less and how the future might look a little more like Vauban.

“All of our development since World War II has been centered on the car, and that will have to change,” said David Goldberg, an official of Transportation for America, a fast-growing coalition of hundreds of groups in the United States — including environmental groups, mayors’ offices and the American Association of Retired People — who are promoting new communities that are less dependent on cars. Mr. Goldberg added: “How much you drive is as important as whether you have a hybrid.”

The majority of Americans feel like they can’t do without their cars, and it’s easy to see why. Most of us are left with relatively few other options for getting around — which means our cars now own us rather than the other way around.

If we start meeting the demand for accessible, convenient, walkable neighborhoods — while changing our transportation spending to make getting around easier — then perhaps given the chance, more Americans will see cars as less necessary for daily life, too.

Posted by Sara Wolfson on Thursday, May 28th, 2009 | 2 Comments »
Tags: Automobiles, Driving, Planning, SGA in the News, transportation demand, Walkability