Sprawl

Suburban Orlando is home to what might well be the best example of the absurd development patterns of post-war America. There you'll find two houses with adjoining backyards whose front doors are separated by seven miles of roads.

March 1, 2013 - DC.Streetsblog

As we reported last week, the central question facing the Board of Supervisors was how could they approve a project that appeared to violate a regional sustainability plan - one that they voted for as MPO members? They did - by a 4-1 vote.

February 2, 2013 - The Sacramento Bee - City News

A proposed 2,700-acre development appears to conflict with the regional plan that complies with SB 375, a 2008 landmark law meant to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by reducing vehice-miles-traveled. The decision rests with the Board of Supervisors.

January 25, 2013 - Sacramento Bee

In Sydney, "the most unaffordable housing market in the English- speaking world", sky-high housing prices are driving residents priced out of the suburbs into apartments downtown, reports Nichola Saminather.

January 19, 2013 - Bloomberg

Santa is sounding the alarm: "Christmas is in jeopardy.” What's making St. Nick a little less jolly this year? New analysis shows that suburban development patterns are driving up costs at the North Pole, say Paul Knight and Kevin Clark.

December 25, 2012 - paullknight.com

Conservative opponents of Smart Growth often decry the role of government in establishing the regulations and investments that incentivize it. But, as Bradley Heard points out, all development rights, smart or sprawling, depend on big government.

December 20, 2012 - Greater Greater Washington

In his work developing plans for six new cities in China, Peter Calthorpe has a unique perspective on what the country must do to build sustainable cities to house its growing urban population. He shares his insights with Fortune's Brian Dumaine.

December 4, 2012 - CNN Money

Saying "no" to Walmart does not remove the wants and needs they exist to serve. If you want a more locally-oriented community, you need a more local-friendly system, says Scott Doyon.

December 4, 2012 - PlaceShakers

A new study of the Philadelphia area commissioned by the Congress for New Urbanism “finds new urban characteristics play a role” in how households and neighborhoods weathered the recent economic downtown.

November 17, 2012 - Better Cities & Towns

Forty-five miles southwest of the Twin Cities sits the exurb of New Prague, a town with state-of-the-art infrastructure but crushing debt. It’s an example of what happens when the “Ponzi scheme” underlying sprawl development comes crumbling down.

November 7, 2012 - Star Tribune

Christopher Hume delivers a forceful argument for why density is necessary for maintaining a prosperous Toronto in the decades ahead, and why the alternative, sprawl, is environmentally unsustainable and economically ruinous.

October 26, 2012 - Toronto Star

In the 1990s, most public argument about suburban expansion was pretty simple. Environmentalists argued that sprawl increased pollution, while their opponents responded by invoking the free market.   Environmentalists and other sprawl critics (including myself) responded that sprawl is the result less of the free market than of government subsidy and regulation.  Recently I have started to notice hints of a not-so-libertarian argument for sprawl: that pro-sprawl government policies such as highway construction open up real estate for development, and thus make housing affordable. 

October 25, 2012 - Michael Lewyn

Joe Edmiston, Executive Director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, embraces the suburban, private yard-quality to Los Angeles living in an interview with The Planning Report, emphasizing the need to balance densification with open space.

October 14, 2012 - The Planning Report

Get lost in the details when explaining zoning reform? Hazel Borys puts forth a pictorial review that helps.

October 13, 2012 - PlaceShakers

Local officials in Overland Park, Kansas, a suburb of Kansas City, are pursuing a plan to build America's National Museum of Suburbia. Displays may include artifacts such as school lunchboxes, electric toasters and camping gear.

October 11, 2012 - The Wall Street Journal

Jeremy Rosenberg continues his fascinating series on the laws that shaped Los Angeles with a look at the local, and national, impact of the 1934 National Housing Act on residential development patterns.

October 4, 2012 - KCET Departures

The State of New Hampshire has created an interactive online tool for its municipalities to examine the impacts of different land use scenarios, in the hopes of promoting smart growth. Geneva Faulkner describes how it works.

September 6, 2012 - Engaging Cities

Charlie Gardner parses the data on mean commuting times recently released as part of the 2010 ACS estimates for metropolitan statistical areas, and wonders what the maximum mean travel time suggests for the urban form of America's cities.

August 29, 2012 - Old Urbanist

Giving new meaning to the phrase "take back the streets," Neal Peirce writes about the arguments in favor of a "freeway free" future for the world's cities, which was the subject of a recent Rockefeller Foundation Conference held in Bellagio, Italy.

August 22, 2012 - Citi Wire

Stanley Kurtz traces the mechanisms by which he believes President Obama intends to "abolish" the suburbs in a possible second term, and the roots of his desire, stretching back to his training as a community organizer.

August 14, 2012 - National Review