Tourney time! CNU street diagram advances farther than Duke, Pitt, Louisville

Big news isn't supposed to happen on the weekends unless it's sports-related or something ginned up by the cable news gum flappers, but there's always an exception to the rule.

For example, Matthew Yglesias's March 28 post Building Good Roads, which includes a reference to Streetsblog’s two-part interview with John Norquist, and a diagram that will be very familiar to new urbanists. Yglesias’s post has generated 7 dozen comments (ignore the first commenter, whose attempt at sarcasm rates an Epic Fail) and an interesting discussion of the principles we hold near and dear.

His interest in and agreement with new urbanist principles is yet another sign that we're being heard in high places and inner circles. Yglesias has a lot of, you should pardon the expression, street cred with progressive bloggers and Washington, D.C., insiders. But his point about paying attention to state and local politics, too, is well taken and one to heed:

Fundamentally, though, the role of state and local agencies is always going to be more important to this kind of decision-making, and things will only improve if people pay more attention to politics at this level.