Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Smart Growth

Report: Want to Ease Commuter Pain? Highways and Sprawl Won’t Help

By Noah Kazis | Sep 29, 2010 | No Comments

Imagine two drivers leaving downtown to head home. Each of them sits in traffic for the first ten miles of the commute but at that point, their paths diverge. The first one has reached home. The second has another twenty miles to drive, though luckily for her, the roads are clear and congestion doesn’t slow […]

Will GOP Senators Acknowledge the Fiscal Sense of Livable Communities?

By John Burgess Everett | Aug 10, 2010 | 3 Comments

Last week, the Livable Communities Act cleared the Senate Banking Committee, a milestone for legislation that would fund local efforts to plan for growth while curbing sprawl. But the 12-10 party line vote raised the prospect that the bill might also encounter unified Republican opposition in the full Senate, where the threat of a filibuster […]

Dodd’s Livability Bill Earns Praise from Local Governments

By Noah Kazis | Jun 9, 2010 | No Comments

With financial reform nearly complete, the Senate Banking Committee turned its attention today to one of Senator Chris Dodd’s (D-CT) next priorities, the Livable Communities Act. Local government came out strong for the initiative to promote sustainable and integrated regional planning, with representatives of the nation’s cities, towns, counties, and regional planning organizations testifying in favor. Among committee members, […]

Message From Copenhagen: Climate Plan Must Include Walkable Urbanism

By Ben Fried | Dec 9, 2009 | No Comments

The energy-saving benefits of transit aren’t limited to the transportation sector. (Image: Jonathan Rose Companies via Richard Layman) At a panel discussion yesterday at the Copenhagen climate summit, American policymakers and transit experts delivered a clear message: Walkable urban development must be part of any effective plan to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Thanks to […]

Predicting the Future is Hard

By Ryan Avent | Sep 25, 2009 | 7 Comments

About two years ago, the Urban Land Institute published Growing Cooler: The Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change, which argued that it will be crucial to build cities in a more compact fashion if the country hopes to avoid substantial growth in vehicle miles traveled and carbon emissions over the next few decades. At […]

Joel Kotkin on Smart Growth: The Streetsblog Re-mix

By Elana Schor | Sep 18, 2009 | 2 Comments

When columnist Robert Samuelson published an alarmingly misguided attack on high-speed rail last month, the St. Louis Urban Workshop fired back in a unique fashion: with a "re-mix" of Samuelson’s op-ed that cleverly edited the piece to better reflect reality. Joel Kotkin (Photo: NAF) The format was so intriguing that Streetsblog Capitol Hill couldn’t resist […]

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