Smart Growth Around America

Far too often, the insanity of 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 a version of this story.

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 [...]

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 [...]

If you’ve been around the conversation on growth and development for any amount of time, you’ve undoubtedly heard someone bring up Arlington, Virginia. Arlington is the bit of Virginia just across the Potomac River from the monumental core of Washington, DC that leveraged the arrival of two Metro rail lines in the 60’s and 70’s to renew and revitalize their county into a prosperous, enjoyable and livable community that is a sought-after destination for employers, businesses, residents and visitors.

Clips available on Planetizen’s site. Watch them there.

The way our communities have been developed for more than half a century — houses separated from schools separated from businesses separated from nearly everything else you need — didn’t just happen by accident. Though it’s been the status quo of development for more than 50 years, many [...]

The hearing before the House Select Committee on Global Warming and Energy Independence just wrapped up on Capitol Hill a few minutes ago. SGA’s David Goldberg, along with Steve Winkelman of the Center for Clean Air Policy, did a superb job in their testimony before the committee. They made a good case for how better [...]

Another tale of two cities: One is up, one is down.
We’ve noted with regularity for the last few months how rising gas prices were complicit in the housing crisis. (here and here, for example). With every escalation in the cost of fuel, new subdivisions and neighborhoods already in a struggling market face another hit as [...]

Anyone who has attempted to measure the merits of proposed development in their area knows of the difficulties in attaching quantitative values to a proposal. Community opposition or support to a project, based on nothing but emotion or feelings about what may result from that new development, isn’t always productive in achieving desired outcomes. And [...]

As long as local and state leaders in Georgia fail to grasp that Atlanta can’t pave its way out of traffic congestion, Atlanta could be in danger of becoming a case study in what may happen to a city’s business climate when an economic model based largely on growth and continual outward expansion hits the [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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.”

Last year, Ontario, Canada raised the bar in the realm of forward-looking planning when they released the Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, after more than five years in the making. With nearly a quarter of Canada’s entire population nestled in this horseshoe-shaped region around the lake stretching from Niagara Falls through Toronto to the eastern edge of the Province around Lake Ontario, the leaders recognized that adding a projected 4 million more people in the coming years while continuing to grow in the same sprawling fashion will surely spell disaster. So they rallied everyone together, studied the outcomes, built consensus, and authored a gem of a plan…