crandell's blog

Below are two stories I came across this week that point toward a shift away from car culture.

The Washington Post ran a great piece on Sunday about how rising gas prices will push our country toward more urban development patterns.

Time magazine had a great article on their website this week about how New Urbanism addresses the problems of global warming and public health.

Leaders from CNU's Southern and Northern California chapter groups participated in a debate at the APA California chapter's annual conference earlier this month about whether California is ready to turn around it's development patterns. The consensus? The state still has a long way to go.

CNU's effort to enable urbanism on Buffalo's downtown waterfront continues to build momentum. This week, the Buffalo City Council asked the State to delay the awarding of construction contracts that would maintain the embanked Route 5 freeway and expand a major frontage road on the Outer Harbor. Councilmembers state that the current NYSDOT plan does not promote long-term economic development because it maintains the main barrier to the waterfront -- the elevated freeway. Instead, they call for a single, at-grade boulevard that would be complemented with a system of streets and blocks to set the stage for the building of valuable urban neighborhoods. Read more about the Council's decision in the Buffalo News article, "Buffalo council unanimous in opposing high-speed Southtowns Connector."

Russ Sikes, founding member of the CNU North Texas Chapter writes in the Dallas Morning News about the need to provide better connectivity between islands of New Urbanism and surrounding suburban development.

Active Living Research forwarded CNU the following announcement. New Urbanism has a lot to contribute to the public health discussion, so if you're doing relevant research, please consider sharing it with ALR.

It seems more and more studies these days are making the connection between the built environment and health, and pointing to the challenge we face in improving our communities.

Two recent news stories are a case in point. One covers a study that found a link between gas prices and obesity. Higher gas prices encourage walking and alternative transportation. But another covered a study that exposed a lack of walking amenities in communities. So what do people do when it gets too expensive to drive, but walking, biking, and transit aren't options?

As New Urbanism grows in popularity and programs like LEED-ND start to take off, more people are paying attention to the natural environmental benefits of urbanism...

The Urban Revival

A study compared how well old-city street layouts handled traffic versus modern approaches. The results set off a firestorm.

From Governing Magazine
By ALEX MARSHALL

When I drive my neighborhood streets of Brooklyn, which were laid out more than a century ago in a grid style, it’s obvious: These city streets do a better job of handling local traffic than the more modern set up of cul-de-sacs, collector streets and arterials. That’s because, when I’m heading somewhere, I can choose from five or six local streets as opposed to one or two suburban style “arterials.”