Smart Growth

Renovate or Replace Community Schools?

February 12, 2008

The Pennsylvania Department of Education released a report titled Renovate or Replace? The case for restoring and reusing older school buildings. [PDF] Smart growth expert and report contributor Thomas Hylton said it was nearly a miracle to get all of the cabinet secretaries to approve the document. Walkability guru Dan Burden had this to say [...]

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Back from Los Angeles, With New Partners!

February 13, 2007

I’ve returned from Los Angeles and the New Partners for Smart Growth Conference. There was quite a collection of speakers there and I saw some data presented in a very interesting way. One particular presentation by David Crossley of the Gulf Coast Institute regarding Garden Cities and the City of Houston stands out in my [...]

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Progressive California Planning Evident in the Book of Lists

August 18, 2006

California is known for being on the cutting edge of progressive planning policies, and this is evident in the recently published 2006 California Planners’ Book of Lists. The Book of Lists is published annually by the Governor’s Office of Planning and Research. Hundreds of cities and counties were surveyed for the publication on a wide-range of planning issues. Some of the more interesting topics in the survey related to this site include form based codes, bicycle and pedestrian plans, healthy community policies, urban growth boundaries, and so on. There are some very interesting facts in this report. One example survey question was “Do you include provisions for walkable or PEDESTRIAN FRIENDLY neighborhoods or development in your general plan?” The jurisdictions that responded “yes” are as follows (as you can see, there is a whole slew of them):

Agoura Hills
Alameda, City of
Anaheim
Arcata
Bellflower
Biggs
Blue Lake
Brawley
Brea
Brisbane
Buellton
Burlingame

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ETE: On SWISS Smart Growth…

July 28, 2006

I find it very amusing that Americans consider the idea of having housing on top of retail a “new” form of development. That's all they have here! It's quite funny seeing century-old buildings containing Starbucks and McDonald's — with apartments on top nonetheless. Saturday night I stayed in a 5-story loft apartment in the heart [...]

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The Ontario, Canada Greater Golden Horseshoe’s “Smart” Growth Plan

July 6, 2006

Press Release

June 30 – The Government of Ontario launches historic plan to manage growth and development in Canada’s most populous region.

The Provincial Government of Ontario, Canada released the first ever Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe on June 16, 2006.

The Greater Golden Horseshoe (with Toronto at its centre) is the third fastest growing urban region in North America. This region represents two-thirds of Ontario’s population, and it is projected to attract an additional 3.7 million people and 1.8 million jobs by 2031.

Upon its release, the Growth Plan won praise from municipal, business and environmental leaders in Ontario and beyond.

“This plan will be a model for all of North America. In my work as Smart Growth Leadership Institute President, it is among the very best I have seen anywhere,� said Parris N. Glendening, President of the Smart Growth Leadership Institute.

The Growth Plan for the Greater Golden Horseshoe, part of the province’s Places to Grow initiative, sets out a vision and strategic policy direction for managing growth in the Greater Golden Horseshoe and will establish a number of firsts for planning in Ontario. The Growth Plan includes a system of urban nodes connected by transit, policies supporting transit and pedestrian-oriented development with minimum targets for urban intensification and new greenfield densities, and clear linkages between infrastructure investment and land use planning. These policies are focused on creating more livable and complete communities, with the right mix of housing, jobs and services that reduce sprawl and help protect important natural areas and agricultural lands. >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Wal-Mart Embracing New Urbanism?

March 21, 2006

I have been meaning to write about this for quite some time, but I think the news is still relevant. The Hurricane Katrina tragedy might actually turn out to be a fortuitous event in the history of the retail giant Wal-Mart. Tired of receiving backlash from the public, Wal-Mart has been an important player in [...]

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The Ahwahnee Principles for Resource-Efficient Communities

December 7, 2005

The Ahwahnee Principles are an essential set of guidelines for land-use and community development. Here are the Principles in their entirety courtesy of the Local Government Commission:

Preamble:

Existing patterns of urban and suburban development seriously impair our quality of life. The symptoms are: more congestion and air pollution resulting from our increased dependence on automobiles, the loss of precious open space, the need for costly improvements to roads and public services, the inequitable distribution of economic resources, and the loss of a sense of community. By drawing upon the best from the past and the present, we can plan communities that will more successfully serve the needs of those who live and work within them. Such planning should adhere to certain fundamental principles.

Community Principles

1. All planning should be in the form of complete and integrated communities containing housing, shops, work places, schools, parks and civic facilities essential to the daily life of the residents.

2. Community size should be designed so that housing, jobs, daily needs and other activities are within easy walking distance of each other.

3. As many activities as possible should be located within easy walking distance of transit stops.

4. A community should contain a diversity of housing types to enable citizens from a wide range of economic levels and age groups to live within its boundaries.

5. Businesses within the community should provide a range of job types for the community’s residents.
>>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Privatization Over True Regional Planning

October 20, 2005

Is planning at the regional level useless when it comes to land use planning? You could make strong arguments either for or against regional planning. An op-ed article on Planetizen by David Renkert argues that the future of regional planning lies in private property owners. He argues that they are in the best position to [...]

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Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions through “Reverse Zoning”

October 5, 2005

Reverse Zone has written an interesting post on ways to reduce Greenhouse Gas emissions through reverse zoning, that is, to place the more dense developments on the fringes of the city and to place the single-family larger lots near the city center to encourage more people who currently drive to walk, bike, or ride transit to work. They argue that those on the more dense ends of the development will still ride transit. They also state that that all neighborhoods should be developed at a walkable scale to encourage people to take less trips by car (In Suburban Nation it is stated that people feel “dumb” riding somewhere in their cars that is located less than half a mile away). >>Continue Reading This Article>>

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Sister and Brother Become Sustainable Developers By Accident

September 23, 2005

Kudos to CNN for their second new urbanism/walkable neighborhoods article that I have read this week. A brother and sister duo bought 40 acres of land in the Colorado community of Buena Vista, intending to develop it as a whitewater park along the Arkansas River. Instead, they wound up developing a walkable neighborhood called South [...]

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