Village Green: Cities matter, but regions and neighborhoods may matter more

by Kaid at NRDC

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.

continued at Daily Kos....

Village Green: A family copes with the unexpected costs of sprawl (video)

by Kaid at NRDC

Queen Creek, Arizona, is on the far southeastern fringe of metropolitan Phoenix.  According to Google Maps, it’s 38 miles and about an hour to central Phoenix by the shortest route.

The land use pattern in and around Queen Creek consists of random enclaves of newly developed leapfrog sprawl, with equally random patches of irrigated agriculture to the north and east.

continued at Daily Kos....