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Kaid Benfield's Blog

Issues: Living Sustainably

Great work from Boston-based smart growth architects

May 15, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Environmental Justice , Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably

Tags:
affordablehousing, architecture, community, HOPE-VI, neighborhood, planning, publictransportation, smart-growth, smartgrowth, transit, transit-oriented-development

 My friend David Dixon, and his Boston-based architecture firm, Goody Clancy, has been doing some fabulous smart growth work, and I’m here to give them a well-deserved pat on the back for it.   I mention this because I’m off...

Robert Rauschenberg, 1925-2008

May 14, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , The Media and the Environment

Tags:
earth-day, robert-rauschenberg

 Robert Rauschenberg was my favorite artist, certainly my favorite of those that have been well known.  I paid a small – well, actually, not so small – fortune for a signed screenprint of his LA Uncovered #7, image above, which...

How smart is your city?

May 13, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
cities, driving, green-cities, publictransportation, smart-growth, smartgrowth, sprawl, sustainability, sustainable, transit-oriented-development, walkable

  After so many wonky posts in a row, this time I'm going to lighten up with one of those fun internet quizzes that I can do more or less all day when I have something I want to procrastinate.  This...

Rethinking environmental impacts to manage growth

May 13, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
carbon, co2, driving, growth-management, impervious-surface, runoff, smart-growth, smartgrowth, sprawl, stormwater

 When faced with a situation where rapid growth is occurring, such as I discussed yesterday, the best thing to do environmentally is to manage and shape it so that a good quality of life is maintained with the least environmental harm.  This...

How much the US will grow, and where: numbers and a map

May 12, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , The Media and the Environment , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
development, growth-management, housing, population, projection, smart-growth, smartgrowth, sprawl

 The housing market may be in a slump right now - in part because we've been building too much sprawl - but over the next 25 years or so the US is going to experience rapid population growth, and the...

Smart growth improves air quality, says new research

May 7, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably

Tags:
airpollution, brownfields, congestion, emissions, infill, neighborhood, smart-growth, smartgrowth, sprawl, traffic, transit, transportation

 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...

Neighborhood food choices may affect your health

May 6, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably

Tags:
choices, community, diabetes, fastfood, neighborhood, obesity, simplesteps, sustainability

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...

Five more green apples for NYC

May 1, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Environmental Justice , Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
affordablehousing, cities, cityparks, community, driving, green-building, greenbuilding, neighborhood, newyork, parks, subway, sustainability, sustainabledevelopment, transportation, walkability, walkable, walking

 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...

How to go green, according to architects

April 30, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Health and the Environment , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
architecture, community, driving, green-building, greenbuilding, greendesign, neighborhood, smartgrowth, sprawl, transportation, walkability, walking

 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...

Chris Jordan’s art: crushed cars, 1.14 million supermarket bags, and more

April 29, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Curbing Pollution , Living Sustainably

Tags:
art, Chris-Jordan, consumption, photography

 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...

Paradise Paved - "Discover Kauai"

April 28, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Saving Wildlife and Wild Places

Tags:
development, smartgrowth, sprawl, sustainabledevelopment, traffic

 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...

Pay as you drive – too sensible for America?

April 26, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
driving, Freakonomics, globalwarming, insurance, pay-as-you-drive, PAYD

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...

How location affects home affordability, illustrated

April 21, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably

Tags:
affordable, affordablehousing, community, neighborhood, smartgrowth, sprawl, transportation-costs

 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...

More on declining home prices and sprawl

April 21, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably

Tags:
foreclosures, housing, smartgrowth, sprawl

 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...

Smart locations fare better as home prices plummet, foreclosures rise

April 20, 2008

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably

Tags:
foreclosures, mortgage-crisis, smartgrowth, sprawl

 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...

Kaid Benfield
Kaid Benfield
Director, Smart Growth Program
Washington, DC
I was raised in the mountains of western North Carolina, surrounded by some of the...
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