Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Walk Score keeps getting better, and it was already very good. With assistance from the Rockefeller Foundation, the locational rating system has now incorporated transit service data from 40 metro regions into its service, so that its maps...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably
"Sustainable communities" was the phrase of the day at the annual symposium of the American Institute of Certified Planners, held last week at the National Building Museum. Federal officials from the Departments of Transportation and Housing and Urban Development...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Cincinnati voters have rejected "Measure 9," an anti-streetcar initiative, by a 56-44 percent margin. The measure was aimed at killing a streetcar plan approved earlier this year by the city council, and would have required further referenda...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places
Lee County, Florida (Fort Myers) is moving forward with an innovative plan to use clustered, dense development instead of large-lot zoning to protect its water supply. Under current zoning the southeastern portion of the Gulf coast county has been threatened...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Environmental Justice , Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Last week I had the honor of being one of seven smart growth types recruited by the American Institute of Architects to work with the city of Indianapolis and community residents on the model revitalization of a distressed urban neighborhood. ...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably
Via Volkswagen's thefuntheory.com ("This site is dedicated to the thought that something as simple as fun is the easiest way to change people's behaviour for the better"), the Bottle Bank Arcade Machine: Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development,...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Last week, I had the honor of speaking to the Indiana chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects on the subject of sustainable communities. I enjoy this sort of thing, and when I have time - as I did...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Medieval cities are almost by definition models of smart growth: built a long time prior to the automobile age, and built to be self-reliant and defensible, they tend to be highly walkable, dense, and self-contained with many if...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
A planning concept that is gaining favor as a guide to creating smart, convenient places conducive to green living is the "20-minute neighborhood": a place where you can meet all of your daily needs within a 20-minute journey, preferably...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming
Fans of Larry David's hilariously cringeworthy hit comedy Curb Your Enthusiasm can't miss the Prius. It's in every episode, one way or another, and has been as long as the show has been on the air, I think. Replacing the...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil
Streetfilms has come through again with a great (if unsettling) 2-minute video on the hazards of crossing city streets. It was shot in New York, but it could have been made in any number of places where car-pedestrian interactions are...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably
I've had a number of posts about the importance of street connectivity in promoting walking and cycling and shortening driving trips. The best of them was Rachel's terrific guest post, explaining the pitfalls when she was a kid trying to...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy
Congressman Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore) has long been the U.S. Congress's leading champion of smart growth. On Monday, he announced the launching (if I recall correctly, actually a re-launching) of a Livable Communities Task Force within the Democratic Caucus of the...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Environmental Justice , Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
Last week's post on the architecture of the Make It Right Foundation's new homes in New Orleans brought some thoughtful comments, and it brought even more when I reposted it on another site that I also frequent. ...
Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably
A month-long test of a redesigned "complete street" on one of St. Louis's neighborhood thoroughfares has proven immensely popular with residents, prompting the city to go forward with full construction of the first of four planned demonstration projects...
