urban planning

How transportation wonks can make your city rank

Here's an interesting ranking. For each major U.S. city, the list-happy editors at Men's Health calculated the negative effects of driving. They aggregated scores on transit ridership, air pollution, fuel consumption, and driving miles. (Presumably, the data are for metropolitan areas, not city limits.) Northwest cities do exceptionally well: Seattle ranks number one, Portland ranks third, and Spokane is eighth.

Men's Health doesn't appear to include a methodology on the web, but I'll take a stab at the explanation. First, a minor point. Seattle and Portland benefit from a felicitous geographic situation: prevailing westerly winds tend to keep our air some of the cleanest in the country, so we do relatively well on air pollution scores. Second and more importantly, the list illustrates that urban areas control their own destinies. Smart policy matters, even if it's relatively small-caliber.

How local building codes can be adapted to meet the 2030 Challenge right now

Compared to cutting-edge technologies -- nanotechnology, coal with carbon capture and sequestration, biomimicry -- building codes seem downright stodgy and, dare I say it?, boring. Yet, much to the surprise of many, building codes are fast becoming the Titans in the battle against climate change. Able to fell with a single blow the giants on the other side of the battlefield -- out-of-control greenhouse-gas emissions, thoughtless energy consumption, and gross energy inefficiency -- building codes are beginning to look pretty darn sexy in their own right.

Select Committee examines the benefits of smarter urban planning

The House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming held a hearing on Thursday about the opportunities for better urban planning to reduce energy use and greenhouse-gas emissions. “Planning Communities for a Changing Climate” brought together a panel of experts on “smart growth,” clean air policy, and transit. Witnesses included Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, […]

Better cities, better growth

The Overhead Wire directs us to a Christian Science Monitor write-up of a new Brookings report on how we might want to support metropolitan economies: “If you’re going to get serious about the economy, then you’ve got to get specific about how you’re going to leverage metropolitan economies,” says Bruce Katz, director of the metropolitan […]

Hot plans rile the Chicago waterfront

Two curious things going on along the waterfront in Chicago, which Mayor Richard Daley envisions as the “greenest city in America”: a brouhaha over plans to relocate the children’s museum to Grant Park, and a billion-dollar dream of a semicircular Eco-Bridge in the same area. A mock-up of the Eco-Bridge. Photo: Chicago Tribune. The $100 […]

Florida city takes another smart(ish) step

Yesterday, the Tampa city council gave preliminary approval to a plan that offers incentives for green building; they’re expected to formally approve it later this month. We mentioned in our rockin’ Smart(ish) Cities series that this was in the works — nice to see it pursued, and heartening to see such places taking green(ish) steps.

Eco-celebrity, design, and social justice coalesce in a new Brooklyn green space

Sun, open space, and celebrity — the opening of Brooklyn’s “Garden of Hope” had them all. On an unseasonably warm and sunny afternoon last month, Bette Midler was in high spirits as she celebrated the transformation of a slice of land between two century-old brownstones from a paved walkway with a few trees into a […]

Focusing population growth in the right places will make us both

The New York Times looks at the impact of high gas prices in communities across the nation today and concludes that increases are most painful in rural areas. Part of this analysis involves an examination of money spent on gas as a share of total income. The big middle of the country does badly, and […]

Public transit ridership is up, but no one’s talking about a better system

But how long will they wait for infrastructure improvements? Photo: Sharat Ganapati One year ago, as America prepared for the traditional summer-driving crush, op-ed pages nationwide fretted over a disturbing trend. Only a decade earlier, oil had plumbed depths near $10 per barrel, and dirt-cheap gas had allowed us to roll over the nation’s blacktop […]