More parents with children are living in downtown Minneapolis neighborhoods, says a recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune. We’ve reported on this trend in places such as Portland, and have made the case that cities need to provide the parks and playgrounds that parents want if they are to have truly diverse neighborhoods from [...]
Filed under: facilities, planning | Tagged: density, downtown, minneapolis | Leave a Comment »
How can parks fit into the smart growth movement? Kaid Benfield, director of NRDC’s Smart Growth Program writes two nice posts about what he calls the environmental paradox of smart growth. He notes in his first post: Environmental impacts will occur with development; to limit them, we must concentrate them, and this can mean increasing [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning | Tagged: density, smart growth | Leave a Comment »
There is a symbiotic relationship between parks and population density. For those living in compact housing around a park’s borders, there is respite, a place to recreate, a back yard where little private outdoor space exists and an amenity that increases property values. For the park, there’s the “eyes” that make it safer, more property [...]
Filed under: planning | Tagged: density, minneapolis | 1 Comment »
The greenest cities are the most compact cities, says David Owen in his recent book Green Metropolis, pointing to New York City’s urban form as a model for sustainability. For the most part, Owen is right on and the book is a good read. Citing high transit use, walkability and tightly packed buildings, he notes [...]
Filed under: green infrastructure, planning, transportation | Tagged: david owen, density | 1 Comment »
An AP reporter takes a trip to Savannah, Georgia, the historic city on the Atlantic coast and provides some background on the its famous network of public squares: But the reason for those public spaces might surprise modern visitors: British General James Oglethorpe designed them as part of a military grid so his troops could [...]
Filed under: planning | Tagged: density, redevelopment, squares | Leave a Comment »
Vancouver, Canada is considered a model for infilling with compact, densely populated development. But there is a problem to this. As Regarding Place points out, a map of the distribution of children in the city shows that few of them are in areas that have seen the most concentrated development in the past few decades. [...]
Filed under: planning | Tagged: density, downtown | 3 Comments »
Anthony Flint of the Lincoln Institute and author of the recently released book on Jane Jacobs pens a piece for the Boston Globe outlining a blueprint for a good city, using the lessons from both Jacobs and her adversary Robert Moses. Flint specifically points out the role of increasing density in making housing more affordable [...]
Filed under: economics, planning | Tagged: density, jane jacobs | Leave a Comment »
Ed Glaeser has some thoughts on how building compactly is better than sprawl, using a somewhat provocative comparison to the Lorax. In a post on the NY Times Economix blog, he notes: In Dr. Seuss’ environmentalist fable, “The Lorax,” the Once-ler, a budding textile magnate, chops down Truffula to knit “Thneeds.” Over the protests of [...]
Filed under: planning, renewal | Tagged: density, smart growth | 3 Comments »
On Common Ground, a magazine on smart growth of the National Association of Realtors has a great piece (pdf) on urban parks in its current issue. One of the more interesting pieces in the article is how density and parks complement each other. Baltimore’s 155-acre Patterson Park, situated in a neighborhood of tightly-knit row houses [...]
Filed under: planning | Tagged: baltimore, density, smart growth | 2 Comments »
