Recent Streetsblog NYC posts about Smart Growth

Smart Growth Leader Tells Planning Commission: NYC Can Do Better

By Noah Kazis | Jan 5, 2010 | 12 Comments

According to the Smart Growth Manual, "It is the planner’s role not to incentivize driving, but to create a transit and pedestrian experience that makes not driving a pleasure." New York may be the most transit-rich city in the nation, but that doesn’t mean big changes to the city’s planning policies aren’t necessary. That’s the […]

A Message from Copenhagen: Climate Plan Must Include Walkable Urbanism

By Ben Fried | Dec 9, 2009 | 7 Comments

The energy-saving benefits of transit aren’t limited to the transportation sector. Image: Jonathan Rose Companies via Richard Layman. At a panel discussion yesterday at the Copenhagen climate summit, American policymakers and transit experts delivered a clear message: Walkable urban development must be part of any effective plan to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to […]

TOD Stalls as Lenders Continue to Bank on Parking

By Ben Fried | Oct 16, 2009 | 1 Comment

Elana linked to this story out of Salt Lake City in the Capitol Hill headline stack this morning, and it’s worth everyone’s full attention. Derek Jensen reports on what may be the biggest impediment to urbanism of them all: The widespread bias of banks against walkable development. Salt Lake City’s new-urbanism epiphany — fervently backed […]

The Economic Argument for Walkability

By Mathew Katz | Oct 7, 2009 | 3 Comments

Chris Leinberger discusses strategies to develop walkable urban spaces in the United States. Photo: Mathew Katz If the American Dream of the Baby Boomers was all about being able to have a car and a house in suburbia, the new American Dream is having the choice between living in drivable suburban places and walkable urban […]

More People, Less Driving: The Imperative of Curbing Sprawl

By Ryan Avent | Sep 3, 2009 | 29 Comments

Experience with case studies has made it clear to many urban planners and environmentalists that to maximize the benefits of transit investments, and to slow growth in traffic congestion, vehicle miles traveled (VMT), and carbon emissions, you have to focus on land use. Photo: Penn State. This knowledge has begun working its way into the […]

The Power of Transit-Oriented Development

By Ryan Avent | Aug 26, 2009 | 7 Comments

Back in the late 1970s, when Washington’s Metrorail system first began operating in Arlington County, Virginia, the future of Arlington and other old, inner suburbs was far from certain. Across the Potomac, the District of Columbia was suffering from depopulation, rapidly rising crime rates, and serious fiscal difficulties. Ballston Metro station, Arlington Co. Photo: Point […]

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