Posts Tagged ‘smart growth’
Development Option Theory
The real option theory of land development was a hot topic in the mid 2000’s, as the volatility of the real estate market peaked. Now that we have a break from the U.S. housing bubble and financial crisis, it’s worth talking about how we might decrease the volatility of the development market over time. Urbanism…
Read MoreEasy Rider: David Byrne Unfolds Bike, Reviews Cities of the World
Over the holiday I experienced a very 21st century weekend. Upon downloading my new Kindle App on my iPhone, I read David Byrne’s Bicycle Diaries, 2009 Viking Penguin. The $14.99 book caught my attention at the local bookstore and became my first Amazon Kindle App purchase for $9.99. I know, I know… but I promise…
Read MoreEverything’s Connected: Health, Healthy Aging, Community Design
Among the most encouraging trends in Smart Growth is an emerging consensus that good community design can address a bunch of issues at once. Which makes for much more comprehensive, cost-effective strategies to match the complexity of challenges before policy-makers. Take, for instance, the agendas of separate entities concentrating exclusively on topics such as public…
Read MoreOn this Earth Day Anniversary: Hints of Convergence
Green meets Smart Growth meets Healthy Communities As 21st century crises and concerns began stacking up, it had begun to look as if Smart Growth priorities were going to have to compete for attention and resources with other burning issues. Such as: Climate change, peak oil, community affordability, health care costs, and now the struggling…
Read MoreAtlanta, AARP, DPZ Attack Challenges of Aging in Place
The New Urbanist mantra for neighborhood planning is to go for compact, connected, and complete. Well, one critical component of completeness, that of making communities comfortable – and practical – for residents of all ages, has been sort of assumed by NU planners. Yet it’s taken an effort by the nation’s primary advocacy group for…
Read MoreWill Economic Woes Stall the Green Movement?
When we got a note from colleagues in Chattanooga, Tennessee, letting us know that that their city had not only crafted a Climate Action Plan but was also set to create a new office of sustainability, it got us to thinking: Is the competition for funding in the deepening recession going to kill momentum for…
Read More“Just Building Sprawl” is Over, But How?
When President Obama declared, before an audience in Ft. Myers, Florida, on Feb. 10, an end to “just building sprawl forever” (fast-forward to around 58:58 for the money quote), it may have signaled a change of venue in the battle over how the stimulus package is interpreted and applied. Up until Obama left Washington for…
Read MoreWhat We’re Reading: A Legal Guide to Urban and Sustainable Development
It probably won’t surprise most folks that the pursuit of more traditional (and sustainable) urban patterns is often thwarted by… lawyers! But here’s a refreshing change: Two of them – Dan Slone and Doris Goldstein, with Andy Gowder – have just released A Legal Guide to Urban and Sustainable Development for Planners, Developers and Architects,…
Read MorePreservation Through Beauty
A recent New York Times article, examining struggling efforts to preserve the architecture of the New Deal, raises an interesting question: Why do some attempts at preservation capture broad-based attention and support while others wither away as fringe acts of desperation? The answer might have a lot to do with beauty. Because, while we’ve come…
Read MoreGluttony and Glut: Finding the New Normal
How serious is the implosion of the once-booming urban condo market? And what does the downturn say about the prospects for housing in urban centers? A piece in the business section of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution seems to say it all. Desperate to unload some units in “a stagnant market,” says the sub-headline, an Atlantic Station developer…
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