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Issues: Solving Global Warming

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...

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...

How to keep smart growth affordable: build more of it

October 15, 2009

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

Tags:
automobiledependence, housingprices, markettransformation, smartgrowth, sprawl

One of the more frustrating challenges for people in our field to overcome is a certain past-is-destiny argument from sprawl defenders who contend that past trends in favor of large-lot, dispersed, automobile-dependent development constitute proof that Americans want more of...

Orenco Station found to have more walking, community interaction

October 6, 2009

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

Tags:
community, mmarkettransformation, neighborhood, orencostation, portland, smartgrowth, suburbs, tod, transitorienteddevelopment, walking

    As many readers of this blog already know, Orenco Station was built as one of the country's first new, suburban transit-oriented developments.  It's on Portland's MAX light rail line in Hillsborough, Oregon, and comprises some 1,850 housing units...

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: ...

Kansas City’s Green Impact Zone: making great use of stimulus funds

September 28, 2009

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Environmental Justice , Living Sustainably , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
climate, community, globalwarming, greenjobs, neighborhood, revitalization, smartercities, smartgrowth, stimulus, sustainability, transit

There has been a lot written about how federal stimulus money has not done as much as one might hope for existing urban communities.  By contrast, quite a bit of the money has instead been slated for highway projects. A shining exception,...

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. ...

Streetcars are popping up all over!

September 10, 2009

Posted by Kaid Benfield in Green Enterprise , Solving Global Warming

Tags:
community, smartercities, smartgrowth, streetcars, transit, transportation

Almost completely dormant for practically a century - with much of their once-rolling stock suffering the indignity of conversion to cheesy "ye olde" city tour buses - streetcars are now making a major comeback across the country.  And they are poised to become a...

Smaller cities can benefit from revitalization, too

September 9, 2009

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

Tags:
community, disinvestment, neighborhood, newengland, revitalization, smartercities, smartgrowth

Andre Leroux, executive director of the Massachusetts Smart Growth Alliance, believes that New England's smaller cities hold the potential to absorb much development that could help save the region's countryside from sprawl.  But it will take some policy reforms to...

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...

Vancouver gets creative with density

August 28, 2009

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

Tags:
architecture, community, density, greenbuilding, markettransformation, neighborhood, planning, smartercities, smartgrowth, vancouver

  If the Reburbia contest sponsored by Dwell and Inhabitat was all about flights of imagination to reconceive suburbs, then FormShift Vancouver, a competition sponsored by the Architectural Institute of British Columbia and the City of Vancouver, was all about...

LEED-ND deserves our enthusiastic support

August 20, 2009

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

Tags:
LEED-ND, markettransformation, neighborhood, smartgrowth, sprawl

I make no pretense of objectivity on this one.  I've been working on LEED for Neighborhood Development for seven long years.  It's now finished and awaiting final approval by the three founding partners - NRDC (in consultation with the Smart...

Smart growth must become more demanding, more community-oriented, and greener (literally)

August 18, 2009

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

Tags:
architecture, community, density, markettransformation, neighborhood, NIMBY, smartercities, smartgrowth, sustainabledevelopment, transitorienteddevelopment

  Is it any wonder that neighbors continue to oppose density (oops, I meant "compact development") when this is what we have been giving them?  We smart growth advocates have gotten lazy.  The issue has evolved in the last decade but,...

Great short video on greening smart growth with living nature

August 17, 2009

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

Tags:
affordablehousing, biophilia, community, greeninfrastructure, neighborhoods, smartercities, smartgrowth, sustainabledevelopment

I want to do a new series of occasional posts on greening the urban density that we need for sustainable growth.  And I can think of no better way to kick it off than with this 5-minute video featuring my...

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...
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