Image: Leimert Park Beat

We’re coming to the end of our first week at Streetsblog Network. The response has been overwhelming and very heartening. We’ve been getting e-mails from all over the country, and the message we’re hearing is that people are craving connection with others who are thinking about the ways in which smart planning and improved transportation networks can change their lives.

One of the most interesting e-mails came from Eddie North-Hager of Los Angeles, CA, who wrote asking us to add a blog called Leimert Park Beat to the network:

Leimert Park [is] the African American cultural center of Los Angeles.The historic neighborhood finds itself in the crossroads. Residents reap the benefits of sound planning that mixed apartments and homes with a focus on trees and wide parkways, and once even mass transit. Yet there is a fear that new transit projects such as the Expo Line and the Crenshaw corridor will change the way of life here. Education and compromise are keys to getting things done, and done right.

Though the primary focus is not on transit, the Beat does promote sustainable and livable communities. I could see why Leimert Park Beat doesn’t fit into your blog network at first glance. But these are stakeholders that need interaction with your community to move mass transit forward in these neighborhoods.

We’ve added Leimert Park Beat to our blogroll, and it made us think about just how complex and multifaceted the "livable streets" movement is becoming–and needs to be.

This morning on Streetsblog.net, the featured post is from GreenCityBlueLake, a northern Ohio blog, and it talks about how planners in Lansing, MI, are installing relatively simple, low-cost infrastructure to reduce stormwater runoff. It’s the kind of project that can change the way people see the streetscape.

We’ve also got news from Philadelphia about bike racks and from Enid, OK, about hiking and biking trails. And we can’t wait to see what comes over the network next.