crandell's blog

Planners say entire neighborhoods, not individual buildings, key to payoff of green principles

Charlotte Business Journal - July 6, 2007
by Bea Quirk

"One of the basic principles of ecology is that everything is connected -- that no part of the environment exists in a vacuum.

CNU President and CEO John Norquist addresses the importance of Chicago's transit and the need to solve the funding crisis in today's Chicago Sun-Times:

http://www.suntimes.com/news/otherviews/460307,CST-EDT-REF09.article

John Norquist promotes a bolder vision for Toronto through a reexamination of their waterfront freeway.

'Tear down the Gardiner'

By ROB GRANATSTEIN

The man who spearheaded tearing down Milwaukee's elevated waterfront expressway came to Toronto with his wrecking ball this week.

The third annual CNU Florida Chapter statewide meeting, Jan. 18-19 at Rollins College, attracted almost 300 new urbanists from across the state.

Steven Pearlstein from the Washington Post lauds Tysons Corner for its suburb grit in his article "Suburban Soul: Reston Is Hot Property, but Tysons Hums With 'Messy Vitality.'" While I would tend to agree that the best places evolve over time, creating that "messy vitality," I think Pearlstein is missing the mark here trying to apply that philosophy to sprawl. Reston will evolve over time, becoming more messy -- and more valuable. But I think without urban retrofit, Tysons will just continue to get plain messy.

On the last day of the CNU Transportation Summit in Boulder this past weekend, attendees had the opportunity to experience Prospect New Town by mingling with the local folk during a wine tasting and social house tour for CNU and local residents. In true transportation summit form, we chartered a "Hop" bus from the City of Boulder out to the TND, which was planned by Duany Plater-Zyberk and is known for its diverse architecture.

120 new urbanists and transportation engineers are currently in Boulder, Colo., for CNU's 2006 Transportation Summit. Yesterday, CNU held a workshop on the Context-Sensitive Design manual produced by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) and CNU. In this second such workshop on the manual, attendees learned from the authors about the recomendations in the manual and how it might be applied, specifically in Boulder. Representatives from the City of Boulder and City of Denver presented local case studies and discussed how new urbanist principles for urban thoroughfare design might be implemented.