Recent Streetsblog USA posts about Smart Growth

How Rethinking the Golf Course Could Help Seniors Age in Place

By Tanya Snyder | Jan 9, 2013 | 11 Comments

The 15,753 golf courses in the United States take up more space than half the state of New Jersey. And though they devour so much land, much of it in suburbia, the sport is foundering — in part because of the enormous amount of time and distance it requires. Some real estate professionals and experts […]

$450 Billion in Federal Subsidies Tilt U.S. Real Estate Market Toward Sprawl

By Angie Schmitt | Jan 9, 2013 | 21 Comments

Real estate in the United States, it turns out, isn’t really guided by “the invisible hand” of the free market. In truth, federal policy puts a finger on the scale in a major way. Even apart from the quasi-governmental Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, the federal government is the single largest investor in the American […]

Study: 10% More Smart Growth = 20% Less Driving

By Angie Schmitt | Sep 17, 2012 | 12 Comments

A professor at San Francisco State University recently developed an econometric model to study how smart growth affects travel behavior. His finding: quite a bit. Dr. Sudip Chattopadhyay measured the impact of certain smart growth indicators on 18 metro areas across the U.S. He found that a 10 percent increase in smart growth amenities — […]

Leinberger: Walkable Urbanism Is the Future, and DC Is the Model

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 13, 2012 | No Comments

Chris Leinberger wears too many hats to count – real estate developer, George Washington University professor, Brookings fellow – but he has one message: “Walkable urbanism is the future.” For years now, Leinberger has been preaching the gospel that the postwar era of automobile-oriented “drivable suburbanism” is over – and urbanism is the new wave. […]

Fact-Checking Deval Patrick’s Attack on Romney’s Transpo Record

By Tanya Snyder | Sep 5, 2012 | 1 Comment

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick got wild applause last night when he told the Democratic Convention audience: In Massachusetts, we know Mitt Romney. By the time he left office, Massachusetts was 47th in the nation in job creation—during better economic times—and household income in our state was declining. He cut education deeper than anywhere else in […]

Tennessee DOT Moves Past Road-Widening as a Congestion Reduction Strategy

By Tanya Snyder | Aug 30, 2012 | 2 Comments

In the late eighties and nineties, every traffic issue the Tennessee Department of Transportation faced was assigned the same solution: a bypass. But over the years, the department has come around to a new way of doing things, according to 40-year TDOT veteran Ralph Comer. Comer says the current commissioner, John Schroer, wants to become […]

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