Smart Growth Around America

One of the biggest reasons to break down barriers and allow the market to deliver more compact, walkable development in the coming years is the changing demographics (and consumer preferences) resulting in growing segments of people preferring that lifestyle — especially the rapidly-growing group of people over the age of 65. By just 2030, nearly 1 in 5 Americans will be over age 65. David Alpert of Greater Greater Washington writes that walkable urbanism is great for empowering seniors who can no longer drive:

You’ve probably seen some of the anecdotal evidence in newspaper stories or other outlets recently about how many center cities have experienced a resurgence of residential growth within their borders over the last 10 to 20 years.
Many of us had wondered if there had been any systematic examination of building permit trends to document the [...]

SGA communications director David Goldberg appeared on KGO in the San Francisco Bay Area last night, discussing how America is fundamentally changing in light of rising gas prices — as well as a plethora of other factors and trends all converging at the same time.
People have been coming back in [to cities] for the last [...]

As we’ve highlighted this week, Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change is out in its final, sharp-looking book form. Released in a preliminary technical form last fall, the book has been revised, updated, and published as a beautiful hardcover book, replete with informative graphics, pictures and illustrations.
The crux? It will be [...]

Those were the words of Scenic America’s Kevin Fry in a slideshow from the New York Times that accompanied a Dan Barry column just before Christmas.

(New York Times photograph by Angel Franco. Click image to view the slideshow)
“Once you’ve lost your connection to your place you have no reason to care about it anymore. It’s [...]

But they still have places to go, people to see, things to do. So how do they stay mobile once their ability to drive is gone?
As we’ve noted frequently, seismic demographic shifts are underway as America races towards 400 million in population. One of them is an approaching “senior tsunami,” with nearly 1 in [...]

The New York Times gave some love this weekend to Portland, Oregon. First, a story about the growth of the city focuses on how maintaining a small-town big city designed for people, connected to the environment, and with options for transportation, has resulted in a population boom in younger people, as well as older people [...]

Three-fourths of Americans believe that being smarter about development and improving public transportation are better long-term solutions for reducing traffic congestion than building new roads, according to a survey released today by the National Association of Realtors® and Smart Growth America.
The 2007 Growth and Transportation Survey details what Americans [...]

Atlanta has been a region typically known for its affordable housing stock and rapidly-growing suburbs and exurbs. But a new study being released in Atlanta this week chronicles affordability in the region and finds that not only is there a dearth of affordable housing, there is a disconnect between affordable housing and its major job [...]

Many of us watching the last few decades of development in America have been repeating the mantra that the weight of crushing commutes, skyrocketing fuel and energy prices, overly large and costly houses and understated demographic changes were converging on us with serious ramifications and that changing the rules to create more affordable, smaller footprint [...]