Posted by Kaid Benfield in Environmental Justice , Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
HOPE VI is by far my favorite government housing assistance program. Few in my world know how it got its name (Housing Opportunity for People Everywhere, Title VI - thanks, Payton), but we all know its mission of...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
Over the last decade or two, cities have begun to reclaim their urban neighborhoods from freeways. Boston buried its Central Artery in the Big Dig. San Francisco tore down the earthquake-damaged Embarcadero Freeway and replaced it with a more...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , The Media and the Environment
I was going to award another satirical turkey to a deserving entity, as I did last year. But then I thought better of it: this is a more optimistic season, and I have decided to go positive and acknowledge...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
Today I am able to treat you to another guest post by my colleague Rachel Sohmer, who hits it out of the park: I grew up in a typical subdivision of detached single-family homes built in the 60s, where...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
So reports the Federal Highway Administration, even though gasoline prices were falling at the time. Especially significant is that the decline is in overall cumulative miles driven, not just miles driven per capita or per household. This is important: ...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably
As a longtime and very committed resident of DC, I often barely recognize the place that the media are talking about when they comment on "Washington." To listen to them, we are all about politics - not even policy, just politics...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
Copenhagen (above left) has long reserved its main shopping street for pedestrians, as have other European cities (Galway comes immediately to mind). More recently, Montreal (above right) and even New York have experimented with the idea. Writing...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Wednesday afternoon I attended the presentation of EPA's annual National Awards for Smart Growth Achievement. There are four worthy winners, each of which gave a brief presentation: Downtown Silver Spring (MD) Redevelopment Project (Award for Overall Excellence) Just...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming
A few years ago, my friend and then-transportation-guru Hank deserted those of us who had befriended him in DC and scampered off to New Mexico, where he had some property, and built an organization that became Reconnecting America. Shortly...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in The Media and the Environment
My colleague Gaby Chaverria has pointed me, and now I point you, to "50 Strange Buildings of the World," brought to us by the folks at Village of Joy ("Amazing, Interesting, Wonderful, Weird, Odd and Funny things about our...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Katie Worth reports in the San Francisco Examiner that the owners of the Potrero Center strip mall in the city are seeking a planning amendment that will allow them to build several stories of housing on the site, on top of...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Writing in yesterday's Washington Post, Joel Garreau (Edge City, Radical Evolution) collects ideas from several accomplished designer and developer types on how to reshape old big-box retail stores into spaces more suited to the 21st-century. It's a subject I've...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
Check out this great video showing how Boulder, Colorado jazzed up its bus routes with creative input from its residents. It comes via Streetfilms, where Clarence Eckerson, Jr., introduces it: "Welcome to an innovative way of thinking about transit: ask...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places , U.S. Law and Policy
Earlier in the week, I reported on the success of various transit measures in referenda around the country on November 4. According to our friends on the Trust for Public Land's excellent City Parks Blog, it was also a...continued→
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , U.S. Law and Policy
One of the biggest challenges to solving sprawl and addressing the many social and environmental issues that accompany growth is the plethora of jurisdictions that complicate regional thinking. The environment doesn't respect political boundaries and neither does unemployment or...continued→
