Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
The federal Environmental Protection Agency has released important new research detailing the benefits of smart growth on transportation emissions and air quality. In particular, the report reviews the effects on traffic and pollution that would occur if new growth and land development...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
The balance of healthy-vs.-unhealthy food options near your home has a major impact on your health risk, according to a new report released this week by PolicyLink, UCLA's Center for Health Policy Research, and the California Center for Public Health...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming
Last week my longtime NRDC colleague Eric Goldstein posted a blog entry highlighting five laudable environmental sites (green apples) and five awful ones (bad apples). Eric got it right as usual. I am particularly a fan of his because, like...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
The American Institute of Architects has announced their annual “Top Ten Green Projects,” as chosen by the Institute’s Committee on the Environment (affectionately known as “COTE”). Now I have to say that I personally like and am impressed by just...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably
Chris Jordan thinks big, and he wants us to think big, too. He makes large-scale fine art photographs of American mass consumption, the losses from Hurricane Katrina, and more. Have you ever wondered what the number of plastic drink bottles...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Please forgive the lame title reference to a 40-year-old (!) Joni Mitchell song, but my creative juices are running a little low today. Fortunately, they weren't running low AT ALL for the guy who made this video. I could try...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
If you live in an average-sized household, and your household drives 20,000 miles or fewer per year, you are probably paying too much for automobile insurance. If, on the other hand, your household is driving more than 22,000 miles per...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably
I'm on a roll, thinking about how home prices interact with location. The evidence is just ever more clear that smart growth locations deliver more value to the homeowner or homebuyer than we may have previously understood. As I posted...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably
National Public Radio's Morning Edition has joined the chorus of observers who are finding that sprawl locations may be suffering disproportionately from the turmoil in the nation's housing market:"Morning Edition, April 21, 2008 · Median home prices across the nation...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably
In previous entries, I’ve pointed to work by serious academics suggesting that, because of the mortgage crisis and other more structural changes in the housing market, sprawl locations are at more risk of decline than closer-in, more accessible locations. The smart-growth...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably
"If the automobile had followed the same development cycle as the computer, a Rolls-Royce would today cost $100, get a million miles per gallon, and explode once a year, killing everyone inside." - Robert X. Cringely__________________(Passed along to me by...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Thanks to my NRDC colleague Nancy Stoner for pointing me to a great new article about green roofs on the msnbc web site. We’ve been struggling a bit within the environmental community to agree on techniques for watershed protection that...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably
One of the reasons that homebuyers sometimes choose sprawl houses is that “you get more for your money” when you locate farther out of town. (Of course, the other side of that coin is that the market values close-in, convenient...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably
Davis, California is the country’s most bicycle-friendly city, according to the League of American Bicyclists. More about that soon. In the meantime, though, be advised that a highly self-indulgent post follows. Yes, even more than usual. But think of it...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Matthew Yglesias on theatlantic.com points out that it is not just large cities and metro areas that can adopt smart growth practices. He correctly explains that there are plenty of places in America that will never have, for example, sophisticated public...
