Having already begun a comprehensive energy and environmental retrofit of a key part of Denver’s Lower Downtown, the nonprofit organization Living City Block is now looking to do the same in a neighborhood in the heart of Washington, DC. It is a fantastic project that stands to become a model for the greening of mixed-use urban neighborhoods across the country.
Builders of Hope is a remarkable North Carolina-based charity that saves older houses from demolition (frequently moving them to a new site), thoroughly rehabbing them to green standards. They then put the homes up for sale at below-market rates to qualifying buyers. (In addition, some of the organization's homes are sold at market rates.) Even better, although the organization benefits from a lot of volunteer help, they also make a concerted effort to hire homeless and other people in transitional situations for their moving and construction work. That is worthy of a Thanksgiving post.
OK, this video is really funny. Due credit to Jeff Speck and Ken Firestone for propagating it around urbanist Facebook circles, and to Andre Spino-Smith and JJ Kinsfather of the Buena Vista, Colorado development South Main, who are credited with putting it together. Enjoy:
I’m going to start by being deliberatively provocative: "cities" may not matter nearly as much as we sometimes suggest. I surround the word with quotation marks, because I am talking about cities as municipalities with legal boundaries – which is not, by the way, how most people use the word. And that’s where we can get into trouble when it comes to policy.
The trendiest neighborhood in West Palm Beach is Northwood, a collection of historic districts, fading industrial areas, and blocks of small bungalows and grand Mission-style homes that is now hopping with cafes, boutiques, a monthly art and wine "promenade," new workforce housing, significant streetscape improvements, a new Maritime Institute, and a can-do attitude. Yet not that long ago it was a worn-down area with declining property values (pre-recession), empty storefronts, "slum landlords" and a dicey reputation. One local business owner lamented to Palm Beach Post reporter Rhonda Swann in 2008 that "Northwood Village [the commercial district] has been up and coming for 25 years, and that's sad."
In almost all American communities, if public transit exists in any meaningful way, it competes for patronage, primarily though not exclusively with driving. While some advocates seem to believe that the best way to attract more riders to transit is to make driving increasingly as unappealing as possible through fees, removal of or restrictions on parking, "road diets" and the like, I’m not fully in that camp. There is an appropriate context for each of the things I just mentioned, but for the most part I want to make transit better so that customers choose it not just out of necessity but because it is easily accessible, comfortable, and efficient.
Last week marked the 40th anniversary of the federal Clean Air Act, providing an appropriate occasion to revisit the effects of sprawl and smart growth on air quality.
As noted in a report on public health and smart growth prepared by Lawrence Frank, Sarah Kavage and Todd Litman, the increased automobile trips and miles driven under sprawling land use patterns are "associated with higher levels of several air pollutants that have adverse respiratory health impacts. These harmful pollutants include fine particulates, toxins, carbon monoxide, NOx [nitrogen oxides] and VOCs [volatile organic compounds." (NOx and VOCs are precursors to ozone smog.)
As we reflect on the five years that have passed since Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, we can observe both progress and much, much left to be done. At Xavier University Sunday, President Obama spoke for many when he said that despite progress there are still too many vacant lots, too many people unemployed and "too many New Orleanians who have not been able to come home." Writing for the Associated Press, Cain Burdeau and Michael Kunzelman also report that the President noted the harsh reality that the recession and the Gulf oil spill have only compounded the challenges of recovery.
Rebuilding one of our nation’s most loved (if also most impoverished) cities has been inherently a matter of planning and architecture, and the task has brought out many ideas, some fabulous, others well-intentioned but falling short of the mark, in my humble opinion.
This is a great story: grassroots-driven gardening in western North Carolina is bringing diverse, underserved communities together around the cause of local sustainability, enlivening neighborhoods in the process.
Earlier this month, I spoke to the annual convention of the American Institute of Architects in Miami Beach, as part of a session on neighborhood density. We had a sizable, knowledgeable and attentive audience, and I was struck by the fact that most of the comments and questions after our session were about what we need to do to craft sustainable urban economies, not the facts and figures we had presented regarding the market for walkable neighborhoods, how to design for environmental sustainability, and the dividends that urban densities can bring to their communities.
