Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Economics

Apartment Blockers

By Alan Durning | Sep 16, 2013 | 48 Comments

Alan Durning is the executive director and founder of Sightline Institute, a think tank on sustainability issues in the Pacific Northwest. This article, originally posted on Sightline’s blog, is #9 in their series, “Parking? Lots!” Have you ever watched the excavation that precedes a tall building? It seems to take forever. Then, when the digging […]

The Defense Department’s Embrace of Livability Will Save Money — and Lives

By Tanya Snyder | Jun 20, 2013 | 4 Comments

On Tuesday, we wrote about the Defense Department’s new rules for the design of their bases and installations. These rules make smart growth the law of the land on hundreds of vast military installations in the U.S. and abroad. There’s more to the story: In this post we examine how a smart growth development model […]

Suburbanization of Poverty Isolates a Growing Number of Americans

By Tanya Snyder | May 21, 2013 | 12 Comments

Poverty is no longer a predominantly urban problem — and the suburbs are no longer the refuge of the upper classes. There are now almost 3 million more poor people living in suburbs than in cities, according to a new book, “Confronting Suburban Poverty in America,” by Elizabeth Kneebone and Alan Berube of the Brookings […]

Transport U: Colleges Save Millions By Embracing Policies to Reduce Driving

By Angie Schmitt | Apr 16, 2013 | 42 Comments

Jeffrey Tumlin was managing transportation programs at Stanford in the mid-1990s, when he made an important finding: It was cheaper for the university to pay people not to drive than to build new parking structures. Offering employees just $90 a year not to drive to campus was enough to entice many of them to use […]

Study: Homes Near Transit Were Insulated From the Housing Crash

By Tanya Snyder | Mar 22, 2013 | 11 Comments

If you live close to a transit station, chances are you’ve weathered the recession better than your friends who don’t. Your transportation costs are probably lower, since you can take transit instead of driving. Transit-served areas are usually more walkable and bikeable too, multiplying your options. And while home values plummeted during a recession that […]

Bicycling Means Business: How Cycling Enriches People and Cities

By Tanya Snyder | Mar 8, 2013 | 9 Comments

If bicyclists want to convince policymakers of the benefits of cycling, they need to stop talking about cycling. That was one major lesson of this year’s National Bike Summit, thanks to some strategic research done by a friendly consultant. So the Summit’s theme was “Bicycling Means Business” – and the economic impacts of a healthy […]

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