Please consider supporting our continuing efforts by purchasing our award winning documentary film Sprawling From Grace.

Only $19.95!

  Planetizen - Urban Planning, Design and Development Network

As money-poor mega-developments become less feasible to construct, builders may soon have to revert to developing at a smaller scale–a strategy that makes still more sense economically.

read more

Go to Source

  Planetizen - Urban Planning, Design and Development Network

Car-free for more than 15 years, Chicago opened its dying pedestrian mall on State Street to vehicular traffic in 1996, with huge success. Should Boston planners and officials consider a similar strategy for its Downtown Crossing?

read more

Go to Source

  Planetizen - Urban Planning, Design and Development Network

A group of surfers has successfully blocked an environmentally-harmful beach dredging and repair project in Florida, at least temporarily. The project was meant to counteract beach erosion problems, but was protested over concerns about local reefs.

read more

Go to Source

http://www2.pps.org/rss-support/images/openacs_logo_rss.gif  Places In the News

PPS is pleased to announce its new partnership with the Ontario-based Municipal Cultural Planning Partnership. This network is made up of provincial ministries, Ontario municipalities and a host of other organizations representing the cultural, business, planning and academic sectors. As the first non-Ontario member to date, PPS was invited to join because of our unique experience and expertise with creating great public spaces - something of great interest to those involved in municipal cultural planning. 

More info:

Municipal Cultural Planning Partnership

Go to Source

  Planetizen - Urban Planning, Design and Development Network

This piece from Metropolis looks at a rail line that was converted into a bike trail in Detroit, and how it has become a well-used neighborhood connector.

read more

Go to Source

  Planetizen - Urban Planning, Design and Development Network

The Seasteading Institute claims to be only a few years away from launching a prototype of a floating city.

read more

Go to Source

  Planetizen - Urban Planning, Design and Development Network

As commercial vacancies increase, cities are feeling the pain of lower tax revenues.

read more

Go to Source

http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/images/sgalogosmall.jpg  Smart Growth Around America

Click to learn more about the report

Governors and state departments of transportation around the country are burning the midnight oil to prepare lists of transportation projects that could be funded under President Obama’s economic stimulus package, The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.

As they develop these lists of transportation projects to be funded under the stimulus, Smart Growth America has partnered with state and local groups across the country to release a report today showing the many ways the money can be used in each state to address their citizens’ transportation priorities and get the biggest bang for the buck.

While early news reports described most of the money as highway dollars, the reality, as this report makes clear, is that states have wide latitude to apply the funds to meet growing transit demand, restore our roads and bridges, and maximize the number of jobs created.

According to a poll released in January by the National Association of Realtors, an overwhelming 80 percent of Americans believe it is more important that the stimulus funding include efforts to repair existing highways and public transit rather than to build new highways. The poll clearly shows that the vast majority of Americans believe restoring existing roads and bridges and expanding transportation options should take precedence over building new roads. Repair projects have also been shown to create 16% more jobs, and to do so faster, than those that build new highway capacity.

This report, Spending the Stimulus, lays out 20 ways that state officials can and should spend the federal funding on ready-to-go projects that will address long-neglected transportation priorities while providing speedy and robust job creation and economic recovery.

Some high-priority, job creating project types identified in the report include investments that:

• Repair roads, bridges, transit facilities, buses, rail tracks and stations.
• Build complete streets that help everyone get around; support cars, buses, bikes and pedestrians; and expand safe routes to school.
• Support public transportation to meet increased demand.
• Ease road congestion by providing more routing choices and diffusing traffic.
• Support efforts to plan and coordinate transportation and development

Download the full report and learn more about the project at http://stimulus.smartgrowthamerica.org, where you can also see a list of ready-to-go projects in the report’s Appendix.

Go to Source

http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/images/sgalogosmall.jpg  Smart Growth Around America

You’ve probably seen some of the anecdotal evidence in newspaper stories or other outlets recently about how many center cities have experienced a resurgence of residential growth within their borders over the last 10 to 20 years.

Many of us had wondered if there had been any systematic examination of building permit trends to document the anecdotal evidence we’ve all seen and heard about “inward momentum” toward the core in many metro regions. But it didn’t appear that anyone had measured the data to see if the facts bear out with the anecdotal evidence.

John Thomas at EPA’s smart growth division picked up the challenge, and EPA just released his results in “Residential Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan Regions”

Across the country, many urban neighborhoods are experiencing dramatic transformations. Parking lots, underused commercial properties, and former industrial sites are being replaced by condos, apartments, and townhouses. In spite of the many impressive projects, a central question remains: Do such examples add up to a fundamental shift in the geography of residential construction?

To answer this question, EPA examined residential building permits in the 50 largest metropolitan regions. The main goal was to clarify: 1) if there has been a shift toward redevelopment; and 2) in which regions the shift has been most significant.

The trends indicate that the distribution of residential construction has significantly changed over time in many regions. In more than half of the largest metropolitan areas, urban core communities have dramatically increased their share of new residential building permits.

• The central city has more than doubled its share in 15 regions.
• The increase has been particularly dramatic over the past 5 years.
• Data from 2007 show the trend continuing in the wake of the real estate market downturn.

While most growth in these metropolitan regions was still taking place in suburban or exurban areas, the center cities were increasing their share of new residential construction significantly. Look at this chart from page 9 showing the growth in central city share of new building permits in five major metropolitan areas, where you can see that they all increased their share of new growth.

Even in the areas where new center city growth fell during the real estate downturn in this decade — like Miami, Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia — “they fell less dramatically than new construction in suburban and exurban jurisdictions.”

It’s important to recognize that this growth isn’t being generated by smoke and mirrors; this is the result of the market responding to what people want as American households get older, have fewer children, grow tired of long commutes and living far from their work, and in generally look for housing in places where they can get around easily and experience a high quality of life.

The Urban Land Institute and other real estate experts have been giving this advice to any developers who will listen. From p. 5 of the report:

This acceleration of residential construction in urban neighborhoods reflects a fundamental shift in the real estate market.  Lower crime rates in central cities and changing demographics are often cited as forces driving this change.  The increased demand for homes in walkable communities close to high-paying jobs has also been documented by a number of studies (Leinberger 2007, Nelson 2007, ULI 2006).  For example, the 2007 edition of the annual Emerging Trends in Real Estate report singles out infill and mixed-use development as “best bets”:

“Energy costs add fuel to the fire—people want greater convenience in their time-constrained lives.  Far-flung greenfield homes may cost less, but filling the gas tank burns holes in wallets. Both empty nesters and their young adult offspring gravitate to live in more exciting and sophisticated 24-hour places—whether urban or suburban—with pedestrian-accessible retail, restaurants, parks, supermarkets, and offices.  Transit-oriented development at subway or light-rail stations almost cannot miss.”  (ULI 2006, p. 14)

Read the full report from the EPA’s Smart Growth Office.

Go to Source

http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/images/sgalogosmall.jpg  Smart Growth Around America

There’s an old problem in government — probably at all levels, but most notably at the federal level — of agencies working at cross purposes with each other.

For example, new transportation investments in unneeded highways in exurban areas works against the EPA’s effort to reduce emissions and satisfy the Clean Air Act. Sometimes this happens because the stated purpose of the federal agency runs counter to the purpose of another agency. Other times it happens because there is no larger goal that all agencies are working towards, or the agencies simply fail to communicate with each other.

Considering this to be the historic status quo in DC, it’s encouraging to read the comments from new Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Shaun Donovan.

At the NYU Furman Center Housing Policy Conference, Donovan talked at length about his hopes for integrating HUD’s housing work into the larger goals of the Obama administration for sustainability and energy use.

Near the end of the excerpt below, he connects the idea of sustainability to location — rather than only focusing on retrofitting housing to use less energy, he wants to get HUD thinking about building that housing in more sustainable locations; locations that can give residents good access to daily needs and multiple transportation options.

Photo of the HUD building in Washington, DC by Flickr user presta (Creative Commons)

Donovan called for using the current housing crisis to help HUD transform housing policy, summarized by Carol Coletta from CEO’s for Cities. A short excerpt:

Beginning to use housing policy for broader sustainability within economy.  This is an area more than any other where we can begin to advance simultaneous goals of housing and sustainability.  There is a growing recognition that the way we build housing and our cities are in no way sustainable.  That must change. HUD touches 1 in 10 homes in this country, so HUD can set examples for private sector in retrofitting buildings and adding renewable energy technologies for energy efficiency. HUD can catalyze the way housing is built and renovated across the residential market overall that will have a dramatic effect on emissions.

But focusing on housing is not enough. We must focus on location efficiency, and HUD must be the leader within the administration on this issue. This budget will create an Office of Sustainability within HUD and partner with DOE and DOT to create a team within the administration to focus on how we make our nation more sustainable. Ron Sims will lead the new office of sustainability and to coordinate efforts across agencies.

Former King County (WA) Executive Ron Sims knows a thing or two about sustainability, having worked hard in Seattle and King County to get all government agencies to work together towards the broader goal of a sustainable King County — whatever their area of focus may be.

That is exactly the kind of leadership and cooperation at the federal level that we’ll need to make this ambitious vision a reality.

Go to Source