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The Planetizen News Brief

4 October 2007 - 7:00am
Smart City Radio

The Planetizen News Brief is a weekly rundown of some of the most interesting and important news and issues of the past week.

The Planetizen News Brief airs every week on the nationally-syndicated radio program "Smart City", which is broadcast in cities across the U.S. Learn more about Smart City and listen to archived shows.

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Full Transcript

New neighbors might mean more than just some fresh faces in the neighborhood. They could also mean an appetite for land that will take up twice the amount of space as long-time residents. A paper published in the journal Urban Studies found that as people move into urban areas, they take up twice the amount of space as existing residents. University of Minnesota environmental engineering professor Julian Marshall was examining census data for cities with growth rates of 10 percent or more for the past fifty years, and was surprised to see the correlation between newer residents and larger amounts of land used. Armed with this data, cities may be able to gain the political leverage to move away from the pattern of sprawl development.

And in Queens, New York, where parking is a high-priced commodity, the city planning department is pushing a plan to help reduce the amount of land lost to property owners who pave over their front yards to create parking spaces. The Queens Chronicle reports that the city has introduced a zoning change that would require all new construction to maintain a minimum amount of planting space in front yards. Proponents hope the plan will meet approval from community boards, which have 60 days to comment. And though some say parking is more important than a couple square feet of lawn, proponents are citing the environmental benefit of allowing stormwater to seep back into the ground rather than drain from paved parking spaces into paved gutters and city sewers.

And finally, in San Francisco, cyclists and bike advocates recently celebrated the fifteenth anniversary of the group bike ride known as Critical Mass. The San Francisco Chronicle reports that the monthly bike ride slash political statement slash exercise in civil disobedience has grown from a relatively small action involving only four dozen people to a world-renowned event that brings thousands of cyclists out onto the city’s streets. The loosely organized event has no specific leader and operates mainly at the whim of whoever ends up in the front of the pack, but the message of the bikers has been honed over the years as one calling for increased sensitivity to the varied uses of the road and to move beyond the out-dated assumption that streets are just for cars. And though the event has had its share of ugly run-ins between overzealous cyclists and angry motorists, San Francisco’s Critical Mass has been able not only to sustain itself, but also to grow in popularity, and spread across the world.

Stories discussed in this week's Planetizen News Brief

Changing Demographics Bring Changing Density

The End Of Paving Over Suburban Paradise?

15 Years Of Critical Mass

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"To ignore this space is shortsighted." -- Jennifer Wolch, Director of the USC Center for Sustainable Cities
”