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May 5, 2023 | 2:35 pm

CARZILLA: Are huge SUVs & trucks hurting pedestrians and walkable communities?

I’ve become obsessed with the size of personal vehicles, and I’m pretty sure it’s driving my wife crazy. Every time we take a walk, run an errand, or find ourselves in a parking facility, I can’t help myself from commenting constantly about the enormous size of many newer cars, trucks, and especially SUVs compared to any older ones nearby. I worry that my obsession is getting annoying, so bear with me while I dive into the subject in some detail in an attempt to purge it from my system.

Category Environment | Sustainability, Health, Technology, TransportationLeave a CommentTags Kaid Benfield

July 12, 2016 | 1:57 pm

Aging, Self-Driving Cars, and How We Suck at Predicting Doom

As a species, we like to keep on keepin’ on. We’re predisposed to favor continuity and resist change. Which includes not wanting to be held accountable for any less-than-stellar choices we might make along the way.

For years we’ve had various prophets of doom telling us that dispersed suburban living is one of those less-than-stellar choices and that reality — in various forms — is poised to soon intervene, forcing exactly the types of change we’re so prone to denying.

Category Planning and Design, Public Policy, Technology, TransportationLeave a CommentTags aging in place, autonomous cars, Baby Boomers, peak oil, Scott Doyon

May 11, 2015 | 12:01 am

Household Solar Popularity Builds, As Does Utility Industry Discomfort

A couple of weeks ago, my wife Sharon and I were out for a long neighborhood walk. This is not unusual for us, but on this particular day we took a route we hadn’t walked in quite some time. I was pleased to notice that one of the traditional, colonial-style houses we encountered was sporting solar panels on its roof. And then we noticed another. And another. And yet more, so many that we lost count. Not every house, certainly, but enough in this particular section of northwest D.C. to make a strong impression.

Category Environment | Sustainability, Public Policy, Resilience, Technology2 CommentsTags Kaid Benfield, solar

August 5, 2013 | 12:01 am

Old School Strategies for Connectivity (Hint: Batteries not required)

For years, I’ve been jotting down inverse relationships as they crop up in my professional and personal life. Here, for instance, is one from my previous career as a journalist:

The quality of reporting at any event is inversely proportional to the number of reporters covering it. Think Super Bowls, political conventions and the birth of a royal baby.

And here’s one closer to home for those of us making our livings in community planning and development: The chances for achieving meaningful results for a controversial project are inversely proportional to the degree to which the client expects help from web-enabled social networking.

Category Community Development, Planning and Design, Public Engagement, Public Policy, Technology1 CommentTags Ben Brown, communications, connectivity, Social Media, trust, Twitter

April 8, 2013 | 8:27 am

The Future of Municipal Planning: Is John Nolen rolling over in his grave?

This is not the planning profession John Nolen built. A century later, our great recession has sparked a full re-evaluation of what a city’s urban planning department should be ‘doing’ for its citizens. As witnessed in Los Angeles and San Diego, the planning profession is being measured by its eternal conundrum between Forward Planning Departments that plan for future development projects and Current Planning Services that process today’s development applications.

And, it appears that a few radical devolutions are taking place.

Category Development, Economic Development, Planning and Design, Public Policy, Technology14 CommentsTags Agenda 21, Andres Duany, Bill Anderson, Chuck Marohn, Howard Blackson, Joe Minicozzi, John Nolen, Peter Calthorpe, planning, Teddy Cruz

January 17, 2013 | 12:01 am

We’re All Connected: Too bad more is not necessarily the same as better

Roughly two hundred years ago, working in a little Bavarian workshop, Samuel Soemmering created a crude device that, refined by others, would revolutionize communications for the emerging industrial age: the telegraph.

A hundred years thereafter, post-Victorians began to ponder its evolution — wireless telegraphy — in which individuals would receive telegraph messages, printed out on ticker tape, via personal antenna.

And what was their take on such innovation? Did they savor the prospect of a new age of enlightenment, empowered by ever-improving access to information and to each other?

Category Back of the Envelope, Community Development, Resilience, Technology16 CommentsTags Resilience, Samuel Soemmering, Scott Doyon, social capital, Social Media, wireless telegraphy

March 5, 2012 | 12:01 am

The Social Network: Community Edition

Likes. Friends. Followers. We’ve got hundreds of ‘em. Plus, LinkedIN for professionals and Google+ for, uhhhh, well, for someone and then all kinds of iPhone texting, FaceTime, email, and Skype-ing. Who has time to make a phone call anymore?

In trying to understanding and leverage the power of our wired social networks, I’ve been thinking about how our new handheld technology will reshape our built environment in the 21st century. The obvious technological advances of the past (trains/trolleys/cars) led us to connect and build the places we now live in. Are we responding correctly to the contemporary human condition with the mixed-use, walkable neighborhoods we design and code for today?