Smart Growth Around America

Kaid Benfield is a Smart Growth America board member and the director of NRDC’s Smart Growth program. This post originally appeared on his NRDC Switchboard Blog. Our thanks to him for letting us run it in full here. -Ed.

I make no pretense of objectivity on this one. I’ve been working on LEED for Neighborhood Development for seven long years. It’s now finished and awaiting final approval by the three founding partners - NRDC (in consultation with the Smart Growth America coalition), the US Green Building Council, and the Congress for the New Urbanism.

Do you know what happens to your food before it gets to your plate?
Don McCorkell’s new documentary, A River of Waste: The Hazardous Truth about Factory Farms, demonstrates how ruthlessly efficient factory farm operations across America are failing to adequately protect against serious environmental and health problems that can arise from the necessary [...]

In regards to the news stories about people adjusting their behaviour in light of high gas prices, we’ve been wondering: What will people in metro areas do when they’ve squeezed all the efficiency they can out of their car, combined all the trips they can, and elminated as much driving as they can, but still [...]

[UPDATE: 12:33 p.m. Do read Andrew Revkin's post on the NYT's Dot Earth Climate blog for some other thoughts about the debate and political wrangling going on with the bill.]
After many months of behind-the-scenes work, the first piece of comprehensive climate legislation reached the floor of Congress this week. The Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act is [...]

“We” love the “we” campaign, but it has some glaring omissions
Many of you may have seen the hopeful television commercials over the last week with pictures of windmills, solar panels, and all things “green.” Former Vice President Al Gore launched a three-year, $300-million dollar campaign last week, officially called The Alliance For Climate Protection,” but [...]

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 [...]

BusinessWeek published a special report on Green Design and Innovation this week, and one of their top stories highlights the core message of Growing Cooler: meeting the demand for the walkable neighborhoods and cities that result in less driving is one of the best solutions for reducing emissions.
Alex Steffen reworked his longer essay that appeared [...]

When a timber company proposed a new development on a lake in central Maine that would clear 14,000 acres of forest to build roughly 2,300 homes, forward-looking leaders in Maine questioned the wisdom of a mega-project on pristine wilderness so far from existing [...]

As you could see from our last two posts chronicling the candidates’ positions on energy and climate, it varies from being a core issue among 11 or 12 others, all the way down to not being mentioned much at all. And as interested as some candidates may be in the issues, they still haven’t reached [...]

This is part two of our rundown of candidates’ energy, climate, and transportation positions. Today, we’ll cover the Democrats. (Click here for the Republicans)
As a reminder, Smart Growth America is endorsing neither a candidate nor a party. This is solely for informational purposes. Have we missed something or has a candidate changed their stance? Let [...]

After watching some of the debates over the last few weeks, and partially inspired by a similar post from Rob Goodspeed on the Planetizen Interchange, I pieced together this very abridged summary of where some of the current candidates stand on some of the environmental, transportation, energy and urban issues that our coalition cares about.
Mind [...]

I recently spent five wonderful days in Houston. When I tell people that, they think I’m joking. Most people outside of Texas seem to regard Houston as little more than a bloated, polluted, overheated hellhole. Not a baseless assessment, I’ll grant you, but the smugness with which it is delivered is utterly unwarranted.
First off, as [...]

Oregon voters decided Tuesday that they went too far in 2004, with 62 percent of voters approving Measure 49, a partial fix to the mess created by Measure 37 three years ago. Though billed in 2004 as a way for families to build a few houses on their land, Measure 37 basically removed the last [...]

Devastation was wrought across California over the last two weeks as a spate of wildfires, powered by the mighty Santa Ana winds, roared across the landscape, while firefighters struggled for days to gain control and citizens scattered in the face of danger. While most people probably didn’t give much of a thought to the “why”, [...]

Joel Kotkin teamed up with Ali Modarres last Sunday to pen a piece for the Washington Post entitled “Hot World? Blame Cities, ” in which they ignore most of the scientific evidence about lower per capita carbon emissions of city residents, placing the blame for global warming largely on the shoulders of city-dwellers, and proposing [...]

“This 2007 drought is telling us we can keep on wasting, or we can keep on growing, but we can’t do both.”
— Sally Bethea, Chattahoochee Riverkeeper
Think of it as Hurricane Katrina in slow motion. As you may have heard, the Southeast is withering under a drought unlike any other for at least 100 years. Blame [...]

As you may remember, Measure 37 in Oregon was billed as a way to help property owners get around regulations that kept them from building that extra house or two on their rural land. The past year has demonstrated to the voters the need to beware the law of unintended consequences as thousands of claims [...]

The growing demand for conveniently located housing in walkable, accessible, compact neighborhoods with a mix of uses has been well-documented, but according to research released today, meeting that demand could significantly reduce the growth in the number of miles Americans drive, shrinking the nation’s carbon footprint while giving people more housing choices.
A new book, pre-released [...]

ed. note: this essay by David Goldberg originally appeared in September 2005. On the second anniversary of Katrina, we remember the storm, its aftermath, the people affected—and ponder the future.
There’s something about an event such as Katrina’s devastation of the Gulf coast region that tempts hyperbole.
Just as we fell into the habit of repeating to [...]

An announcement from the Smart Growth Leadership Institute (SGLI):
SGLI, working with The Trust for Public Land (in partnership with the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators and the River Network) launched a new program to help state governments develop innovative ways to protect drinking water sources by improving the coordination between state land use management [...]

When the United Kingdom announced their goal of adding 3 million new homes by 2020 to relieve pressure on an overburdened housing market, some residents probably had visions of great natural places like the London Greenbelt or Scottish Highlands filling up with new housing developments. In a country where space is at a premium, a new report by the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment makes the case that it’s a more economical and environmentally sounddecision to add these 3 million homes by creating “walkable, mixed use, mixed income developments instead of car-dependent housing estates.”

California paved the way last year for states to take the lead in tackling rising greenhouse gases when Gov. Schwarzenegger signed AB 32, which promises to reduce the state’s greenhouse gases to 1990 levels by 2020. Cleaner energy, efficient cars, and green buildings are all part of the equation, but some state leaders question whether they can make much progress given the increase in driving required by sprawling development…

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has drawn much attention for his declaration last month that “green is the new red, white, and blue.” As a companion to a special on the Discovery Channel, Friedman wrote an article for the Times Magazine arguing that the U.S. must seize the lead in creating and deploying “green,” energy-efficient technologies as the only way to maintain our economic edge while shielding ourselves from radical movements and geopolitical instability….

Since its inception more than 10 years ago, EPA’s Smart Growth program has won praise from city and state leaders across the country for their work advising communities in the creation of local plans to embrace growth in a smart and sustainable way, cutting down on pollution, emissions, and vehicle miles traveled.