Schools
Moving to a school with higher levels of traffic pollution could impact students' academic performance, according to new research.
CityLab
A San Jose Unified School District plan to relocate several schools and build affordable housing in their place has sparked controversy. The district says teachers increasingly can't afford to live in the area.
The Mercury News
Parts of Montgomery County, Maryland have declared a moratorium on new homes because schools are overcrowded.
Greater Greater Washington
Bike safety could become part of the second-grade curriculum districtwide.
San Francisco Examiner
A study from the company, Zendrive, found that the overwhelming majority of motorists drive distracted between the hours of 4 p.m. and 5 p.m.
CityLab
The advent of sprawl coincided with a move toward earlier school start times, prompted by a need to coordinate complicated bussing. If students could walk to school, the problem might disappear.
CityLab
The mayor of London thinks ignoring the dangers of pollution from cars today is just as bad as ignoring the dangers of smoking was 50 years ago.
Evening Standard
Schools tend to get built on cheap land. Cheap land is often found near busy roadways—sources of pollutants that are harmful to the health of children.
The Center for Public Integrity
A Seattle writer makes the case for a new school to be located in Downtown Seattle.
The Urbanist
Schools can do more to reduce the environmental threat posed by idling cars during drop-off or pick-up. School districts could also improve their buses with that aim in mind.
Streetsblog USA
The benefits of diverse classroom settings are well established. How then to protect diversity in schools when the surrounding neighborhood is quickly becoming homogenous?
The New York Times
With the national spotlight rightfully focused on the irreversible effects of lead in the drinking water of Flint, Michigan, another insidious threat remains: motor vehicle emissions affecting children's lungs.
EPA Connect
The city of Baltimore is taking a new approach to an old idea: that schools should be the center of neighborhoods.
The Baltimore Sun
Millennials are loving their center cities these days, with their lofts and bars and yoga studios. But what happens when Millennials start to have families and don't quite fit, physically or culturally, into city life anymore?
Next City
St. Cloud, Minnesota is considering the question of whether to renovate or rebuild—and where to rebuild—a local high school.
SCTimes
In a district now comprised entirely of charter schools, many New Orleans children face hour-plus journeys. This makes for increased stress on low-income families and a potential rise in chronic absenteeism.
Pacific Standard
Many rankings try to tell parents where the best places are to raise their kids. But measures that focus solely on narrow criteria like safety and schools often ignore the benefits of diverse, vibrant urban environments.
Family Friendly Cities
Philadelphia Inquirer Architecture Critic Inga Saffron is the latest to respond to an article in the Washington Post asking whether family-friendly cities make economic sense.
Philadelphia Inquirer
Blog post
Nisha Botchwey and Kirsten Cook detail the articles available on the subject of green health and schools in the Summer 2014 issue of the Journal of Planning Education. (Articles mentioned in this post have Open Access through September.)
Feature
An August 19 article in the Washington Post took a tough stance on the value of families to urban settings. Here Bradley Calvert responds by describing how families provide opportunities for planners to rethink cities for the better.
