Contributor Blog
Robert Goodspeed is a master's candidate in community planning at the University of Maryland, College Park.
What Flavor of TEA Do You Want?
The federal law setting nation transportation funding and policy, SAFETEA-LU, is set to expire on September 30, 2009. The huge bill has regulated everything from the New Starts transit program to thousands of pork-barrel transportation projects around the country. With unprecedented concern over global warming, a new president in November, and popular frustration with congestion on both transit and highways, there may be the opportunity for a major revision in federal policy. In this post I review some of the debate so far, and outline the proposals recently released by an independent commission.
Smart Growth at the Grassroots, Part 2
Rethinking College Park
Is College Park, Maryland a great college town? Although the town is home to a top-ranked national research university that is one of the largest employers in the state of Maryland, the town pales in comparison with the nation's best-liked college towns, whether Ann Arbor, Michigan, Ithaca, New York, or Charlottesville, Virginia. In this post I describe one attempt to use the internet to improve an aspiring college town.
Smart Growth at the Grassroots, Part 1
Matching Obstacles and Techniques (Part one of two)
Creating Smart Growth in our metropolitan areas is generally more complex than conventional auto-oriented development, more expensive, and requires more public involvement and coordination. The strong policies and regional cooperation planners desire to coordinate development have proven politically challenging. Unless planners are able to create systems that overcome these obstacles our efforts to encourage Smart Growth will be stymied. Luckily solutions are available, but they must be as nimble and resourceful as the forces they hope to counter.

With a series of new urban libraries opening in U.S. cities recent years, its been said we're living through an 'urban library renaissance.' Whether it is the 


