skip to main content

Natural Resources Defense Council

Switchboard

Kaid Benfield's Blog

Issues: Moving Beyond Oil

Major real estate report: shift to urban living is “fundamental,” outer suburbs may “lack staying power”

November 10, 2009

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil

Tags:
greenbuilding, infill, investment, realestate, smartgrowth, sprawl, suburbs

Last week the Urban Land Institute and PriceWaterhouseCoopers released their well-regarded annual analysis, Emerging Trends in Real Estate 2010.  The report, which has been published for the last 30 years, aims to advise the industry "on where to invest, what...

All aboard: Cincinnati voters emphatically reject anti-streetcar measure

November 4, 2009

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

Tags:
cincinnati, community, measure9, neighborhood, smartercities, smartgrowth, streetcars

      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...

Never mind the Prius – the new chic is going car-free entirely

October 26, 2009

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

Tags:
car-free, driving, prius, smartgrowth, transit

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...

Walkers, be careful out there (video)

October 23, 2009

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

Tags:
community, pedestrians, safety, smartgrowth, streets, transportation, walking

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...

Cong. Blumenauer launches Livable Communities Task Force

October 21, 2009

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
blumenauer, congress, legislation, livablecommunities, smartgrowth, taskforce

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...

Which US cities have the greenest commuting habits?

October 2, 2009

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

Tags:
census, commuting, modes, smartercities, smartgrowth, transportation

Big-time kudos to Bike Pittsburgh for combing through new census data to extract and rank the commuting habits of the 60 largest US cities.  The data chart on the organization's website, naturally, opens up with the ranking of bicycle commuting: ...

Vegas on steroids: meet Dubai

September 23, 2009

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

Tags:
carbonfootprint, desert, dubai, masdar, smartgrowth, sustainability, sustainabledevelopment, water, ziggurat

    For me, a post about Dubai (the amazing pace of construction shown above) must begin with some thoughts about Las Vegas and about the king of rock'n'roll, who performed in that city often and whose impersonators there remain legion. ...

Provocative car pic of the day

September 2, 2009

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

Tags:
cars, driving, smartgrowth, transportation

This comes via John Massengale, who says it was taken at the corner of 63rd St. and Park Ave. in New York.  The red car is a vintage Fiat CinqueCento (500):   Kaid Benfield writes (almost) daily about community, development, and...

Apocalypse Now in Nebraska: Meet Carhenge

August 31, 2009

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil

Tags:
automobiledependence, carhenge, cars, driving, smartgrowth

  From Wikipedia: "Carhenge is a replica of England's Stonehenge located near the city of Alliance, Nebraska on the High Plains. Instead of being built with large standing stones, as is the case with the original Stonehenge,[1] Carhenge is formed...

Oberstar delivers a history lesson and imagination on transportation reform

July 31, 2009

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Living Sustainably , Moving Beyond Oil , Solving Global Warming , U.S. Law and Policy

Tags:
highways, oberstar, reauthorization, reform, smartgrowth, transit, transportation

There's a fascinating (if brief) interview with Rep. Jim Oberstar (D-MN), chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, on the PBS "Blueprint America" website.  Oberstar and his committee will play a major role in the upcoming overhaul of federal...

So, is it an advanced car? A living room on wheels? The end of the world as we know it? You decide.

July 10, 2009

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

Tags:
cars, community, design, driverless, driving, future, MikeandMaaike, smartgrowth

You know, I don't think this design for a driverless car was created with tongue in cheek, though it certainly could have been.  I generally think of futuristic designers and Google-ites as a fun bunch, so surely this is intended...

Biking, walking to school illegal in Saratoga Springs

July 8, 2009

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

Tags:
bicycling, community, neighborhood, obesity, saratogasprings, schools, smartgrowth, sprawl, walking

  The headline reads like something from The Onion, no?  This comes to us via the WTF Department (actually from an article by Andrew J. Bernstein in The Saratogian): "Janette Kaddo Marino and her son, Adam, 12, wanted to participate...

Copenhagen’s 10-point plan for a pedestrian-friendly city

July 7, 2009

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

Tags:
community, copenhagen, pedestrianstreet, smartercities, smartgrowth, walking

  Via tweets from Streetsblog and the Hillsborough County (FL) metropolitan planning organization, I just came across an article about how Copenhagen has made itself one of the world's best cities for walkers.  The city is world-renowned, of course, for...

New numbers prove smart growth reduces CO2, cost-effectively

June 22, 2009

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

Tags:
capandtrade, CCAP, climatechange, globalwarming, markettransformation, sb375, smartgrowth, sprawl, transportation

For the most part, the climate change establishment - whether in government, industry, or the environmental community - has ignored the potential of land use strategies to provide significant reductions in carbon emissions while also producing multiple other environmental, economic,...

US transit cities in-the-making

June 19, 2009

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

Tags:
community, smartercities, smartgrowth, transit

  Grist has an informative and fun read, written by Jonathan Hiskes and Katharine Wroth, on "the best US transit systems you never knew existed": "As cities big and small rethink how their residents get around, new systems are taking...

Kaid Benfield
Kaid Benfield
Director, Smart Growth Program
Washington, DC
Co-founder, LEED for Neighborhood Development rating system; co-founder, Smart Growth America coalition; author, Once There...
more

Switchboard Archives

Kaid Benfield's archives