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Smart Growth
Blog post
Let's rely on science, not ideology and propaganda, when planning solutions to urban unaffordability. Look for credible evidence in the peer-reviewed publications referenced here.
Smart policies can ensure that low- and moderate-income households can find suitable housing in good neighborhoods where transportation costs are low. The research is clear: upzoning works.
Governing
Blog post
A complete community includes an optimal mix of people, activities, and transport modes in each neighborhood. Like a chef, planners need the right ingredients. Here is the recipe.
What does it mean to be a 15-minute city?
CNU Public Square
Blog post
Communities have good reasons to protect trees and forests. Planners can help make this happen.
The National Association of Realtors' recent Community and Transportation Preference Survey shows that many households prefer living in walkable urban neighborhoods, and those that do have a higher quality of life.
2020 Community and Transportation Preference Survey
The new 15-Minute City App generates maps which show the number of services and activities within a 15 minute walk, and and therefore whether an area can be considered a 15-minute neighborhood.
15-minute City Map
Blog post
New Zealand’s new national urban development policy prohibits parking minimums and increases allowable building heights near transit stations. This is a watershed moment for the country’s cities and towns.
At long last, California law will consider the amount of driving, rather than vehicle delay, when evaluating the environmental impacts of new developments. This is a more common-sense approximation of their environmental impacts.
Streetsblog California
Blog post
In a modern, post-industrial society, economic opportunity depends on disadvantaged households’ ability to find suitable housing in an economically successful city. Planners can make that happen.
Can't tell New Urbanism from YIMBY? This post tries to help.
Greater Greater Washington
Blog post
Many jurisdictions have vehicle travel reduction targets. Integrated Smart Growth policies can help achieve these and other planning goals.
San Francisco is planning for new population growth and new housing developments on the West Side of the city, and is also expecting high quality public transit to fill the mobility needs of current and future residents.
San Francisco Examiner
The Vision 2050 plan, which charts the growth for King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Kitsap counties in Washington State, would focus almost all the growth meant to accommodate 1.8 million new residents inside urban areas.
The Urbanist
Blog post
It is important to focus on forests rather than individual trees when evaluating trade-offs between infill and sprawled development.
As more people head to Idaho to escape cities they cannot afford, Boise is encouraging growth and also grappling with the consequences.
Curbed
Charles Wolfe calls attention to similarities between contemporary urbanism and yesterday's debunked utopias. The two may differ in substance, but both tend toward a certain level of dogma that isn't necessarily helpful on the ground.
Public Square: A CNU Journal
Blog post
Conventional planning is static, designed to lock in existing land use patterns. We need more dynamic planning to respond to changing household needs and community goals.
Breakthrough Institute co-founder, Ted Nordhaus, explores the etymology of "carrying capacity" from a shipping term to a biological term, but objects to its application to human population. Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute responds.
Aeon
The U.S. has lower average life expectancy than most peer countries. New research indicates that this results in part from sprawl. Life expectancy, economic mobility, mobility options, personal health and safety all improve in less sprawling areas.
International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
