I find most of these articles and sites through RSS feeds I monitor or links sent via Twitter. (By the way, my new account there is @TracyDavis.) I’m sharing them here because, if I don’t, many local readers may not see them, and they’re too good to miss.
From the Associated Press (Madison, WI):
On the 10th anniversary of the state’s Smart Growth law, leaders of the Wisconsin Builders Association and the Wisconsin Realtors Association gave the innovative comprehensive planning initiative a qualified endorsement.
At a conclave sponsored by 1000 Friends of Wisconsin called Smart Growth@10, Jerry Deschane, Builders Association executive vice president, said his organization went into the legislative process “kicking and screaming” a decade ago, but participated in the drafting of the law, which he now regards as “a good planning statute.”
Read more here.
My hero of the week is U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, who addressed a Senate subcommittee on the subject of “livability”.
I think by now it’s pretty clear that Americans want the kind of communities that are walkable, that offer a sense of connection to their neighbors. Everywhere I’ve been in the US during the past 16 months–and I’ve been to more than 80 communities in 35 states–people have been telling me they want more public transportation and walkability with less congestion and sprawl.
Read Secretary LaHood’s blog entry, Livability works for rural communities, for more.
And perhaps my favorite this week, from The American Conservative, “Sprawling Misconceptions“:
For the 101st time: sprawl — an umbrella term for the pattern of development seen virtually everywhere in the United States — is not caused by the free market. It is, rather, mandated by a vast and seemingly intractable network of government regulations, from zoning laws and building codes to street design regulations. . . It’s odd that self-described libertarians such as Stossel are so slow to grasp that government planning makes sprawl ubiquitous. . . First of all, with a depressingly few exceptions, virtually every town in America looks the same. That is, it has the same landscape of arterial roads, strip malls, and residential subdivisions, accessibly only by car.
I got a real kick out of the original post’s hyper-hyperlinks when remarking on the tired accusation that sprawl’s opponents are inflicting their own views and choices on the free market by ‘limiting where they can build’ (author’s quote): “The fallacy of this view has been pointed out about 100 times.”
And in the “Could Be Worse” department, Strong Towns’ report on Minnesota’s “most vulnerable cities” puts Northfield at #573 out of 855. (Dundas is #678.)
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