Different Sprawl Patterns in the U.S. Cities

[M II A II R II K]

The American Dream: Phase II


June 18, 2012

By ALLISON ARIEFF

Read More: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com...ream-phase-ii/

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If you were to walk into the sales center of any subdivision or master-planned community, from Modesto, Calif., to Tampa, Fla., the first question you’d be asked was, “How much square footage are you looking for?” Not “What kind of community would you like to be a part of?” But increasingly, many of those looking for places to live found that the market had nothing for them. Houses were too big, too isolated, too generic, too hard to maintain. Or they were designed for the quintessential nuclear family that exists more in our cultural imagination than in reality.

- “The giants of the building industry, the creators for decades of massive communities of cookie-cutter homes, cul-de-sacs and McMansions in far-flung suburbs” are doing an about-face, suddenly building smaller neighborhoods in and close to cities, noted an article in USA Today last month. The market slowdown, the article went on to explain, “has given builders time to assess sweeping demographic changes that are transforming the way Americans want to live.” In short, builders are recognizing that buyers (and renters, too!) value the neighborhood as much as — if not more than — the house. And what they want from that neighborhood might not be McMansions and four-car garages after all.

- The aforementioned changes point to the fact that a paradigmatic shift in our concept of the American dream is underway. And this shift is not just because of the recession, says Gregory Vilkin, managing principal and president of MacFarlane Partners, quoted in that USA Today piece, “It’s no longer the American dream to own a plot of land with a house on it and two cars in the driveway.”The country could be moving toward something much better, something that’s less about consumption (of stuff, of such essential resources) and more about quality of life. Neighborhood groups have perhaps never been so strong a force, joining together to create an array of community-building offerings that make shared space the place to be (rather than the place to enter the garage from).

- For years now, people have been looking for an alternative, and the market — and the culture — is responding. A recent piece in Next American City demonstrates that even parts of notoriously sprawled-out states like Florida, Georgia and South Carolina are recognizing that investments in downtown cores will pay far more dividends than investments in their peripheries. Government can play an important role here, too: Since 2009, the Obama administration’s Partnership for Sustainable Communities has supported this shift, promoting more transportation choices, equitable and affordable housing, and efforts to make government work better.

- And yet … there are still those who are having none of it. And they are a vocal and often breathtakingly well-funded minority. For them, the sprawl that characterized the years leading up to the financial crisis remains a dream to strive for. Any threat to the McMansion of yore is equated to “feudal socialism” (I kid you not). And these opponents not only excel at mobilizing the troops but at mastering the message. Take a look at the rhetoric of, say, the Texas Republican party, which recently passed “Resist 21” in opposition to Agenda 21, the United Nations’ sustainable communities strategy adopted in 1992.

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[M II A II R II K]

Milwaukee stand on water, against sprawl, benefits the region


June 20, 2012

By James Rowen

Read More: http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/purple...159768445.html

Kudos to Milwaukee aldermen and Mayor Barrett for making a stand today against regional sprawl development by telling the City of Waukesha that a discussion about diverting Lake Michigan water through the Milwaukee Water Utility will not include four smaller Waukesha-area communities that are disconnected from the life of Milwaukee and its residents.

- Sending Milwaukee water far from Milwaukee to communities without a bus line or a housing stock or a job plan reasonably available to Milwaukee residents makes no sense for Milwaukee, and only promotes highway-building and growth patterns that degrade open space, clean air, flowing water - - and those results cost all taxpayers money. Waukesha can edit its application to comply with Milwaukee's review standards and expectations, or it can apply for a sale from Oak Creek or Racine - - spending more money on infrastructure for a product some say is inferior because Milwaukee ozonates to further clean its drinking water.

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[M II A II R II K]

Housing Report Predicts More Sprawl, Gets It Dead Wrong


Jun 20, 2012

By Andrew Jeffery

Read More: http://www.minyanville.com/business-.../2012/id/41870

In its "The State of the Nation's Housing 2012" report, The Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University covers a broad range of topics surrounding the state of the American housing market. It makes for an interesting read if you happen to be the sort of person who actually enjoys being inundated with arcane demographic and housing data. Sprinkled among accurate assessments like a drop in homeownership among young people and a rise in demand for rental housing, the authors coming to a startlingly misguided conclusion: Sprawl is the future of housing.

- The report even seems to contradict its own logic. On one hand it says as baby boomers retire and downsize, housing demand will increasingly be driven by a younger demographic of homeowners who value things like walkability, short commutes, and proximity to cultural centers. This trend, combined with the housing collapse and Great Recession have resulted in homeownership rates dropping most quickly among households under 45. On the other hand, somehow the folks at Harvard come to the conclusion that exurbs will once again drive housing when the market comes back; "[G]iven that much of the undeveloped land in metropolitan areas is located in these outlying communities, there is every reason to believe that the exurbs will once again capture a disproportionate share of growth once residential construction activity revives."

- The report cites homebuying trends during the past decade and extrapolates that they will continue into the next. But this view ignores the fact that homebuyers of the past 10 years look dramatically different than homebuyers of the next 10, and beyond. As the Millennial generation (also known as Gen-Y or the Echo Boomers) progresses into prime homebuying age, their preferences will increasingly drive development. Urbanists have recognized this trend and smart real estate developers are focusing on urban infill rather than suburban sprawl.

- And so long as home prices remain depressed, as they are likely to do as long as lenders like JPMorgan Chase (JPM), Wells Fargo (WFC), and Bank of America (BAC) hold bank owned properties from the market, artificially limiting supply and prolonging any real recovery in housing, prices will remain below construction cost. Some homebuilders are already refocusing their energy on infill, as anyone living in New York can recognize if they peek across the Hudson at the Toll Brothers (TOLL) projects in Hoboken.

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[M II A II R II K]

Greetings From Walkable, Bikeable, Transit-Oriented Asbury Park, N.J.


June 26, 2012

By Noah Kazis

Read More: http://streetsblog.net/2012/06/26/gr...bury-park-n-j/

Think of a place that you can reach by train, that is densely developed and easy to get around by walking or biking. You’re probably thinking of a center city, or perhaps an inner-ring suburb. But in older regions of the country, there’s another place that has the fundamentals for living car-free: the beach. Built over a century ago, many oceanside towns were designed to attract summertime urban visitors at a time when driving simply wasn’t an option. And with beachfront property going for a premium, it’s normal to see compact, even high-rise, urban-scale development lining the waterfront.

- All of these towns were developed and incorporated in the late 19th century, which partially explains why the form of the area east of Main Street are very compact grids, and in some areas the architecture is more Victorian. These are also of course vacation oriented beach towns, which should lend itself more towards a compact form since there’s an amenity everyone wants to be close to. Throw in an NJT train with closely spaced stops, and you have an urban area that’s urban for every reason except proximity to the city. I think this sort of development is cool because it stands in stark contrast to more traditional transit oriented development. Instead of looking at the suburbs and trying to retrofit a series of centers around train stops, this is more of an urban sprawl similar to what one would find in the inner city.

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[M II A II R II K]

How Buffalo’s Zoning Code Subsidizes Sprawl, Costs the City $$$


28 June 2012

Read More: http://rustwire.com/2012/06/28/how-b...osts-the-city/

Buffalo not only legislates to promote sprawl style land use patterns, it also rewards sprawl based development with a generous gift from the tax payers. In my last few posts dealing with the current city zoning code here, here, and here, I showed how some of Buffalo’s most beloved buildings and neighborhoods can not be replicated today because of an absurd outdated law – the Buffalo zoning code.

- This massive government subsidy of sprawl in the form of drastically lower taxes is true in Buffalo as well. The result of this legal and economic attack on urbanism is to create a city full of parking lots and empty space. As an example of this I looked at some of the properties from 783 to 701 Elmwood. This is possibly the most prosperous stretch of Elmwood. Its land use patterns range from very dense to outright sprawl with some properties containing nothing but parking. The drastic variation in tax rates and money collected from nearby and adjacent properties is shocking.

- It fills the width of its site but only about 1/2 the depth of its lot and has no parking. The remaining space appears to be a shady back yard. It is a wonderful building that people in the neighborhood love. It adds great character and vibrance to the street but, as with other buildings of this type in Buffalo, it cannot be replicated by law. To make it legal you will need to add space for 46 cars and as much as 10,000 square feet of open land. That would almost double the current lot size. Of course to do this you will need to tear down its productive and attractive densely built neighboring buildings.

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[M II A II R II K]

Cities (Of All Sizes) Lead the State in Population Growth


July 18th, 2012

By Tim Evans

Read More: http://www.njfuture.org/2012/07/18/c...m_medium=email

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In June, New Jersey Future took a look at new 2011 county population estimates and found a dramatic reversal of the population growth patterns of the past half-century, with more heavily urbanized counties actually growing faster than counties on the suburban fringe in the wake of the housing market collapse of 2008. This month, new municipal population estimates offer an opportunity to see whether the same phenomenon is playing out at a more local level.

- Between 2008 and 2011, older, more urbanized, more built-out municipalities generally grew faster than less-developed suburban, exurban, and rural municipalities. Consider the eight “urban centers” defined by the State Plan – Newark, Jersey City, Paterson, Elizabeth, Trenton, Camden, New Brunswick, and Atlantic City. As a group, these cities had lost population for four decades, through 1990, and then posted a very small gain (+1.0 percent) in the 1990s (vs. 8.6 percent growth statewide). They continued to grow anemically between 2000 and 2008, increasing by 0.3 percent, compared to a 3.0 percent increase (also fairly anemic) for the state as a whole.

- Just as the Census Bureau found, the “urban” rebound in New Jersey extends beyond the biggest and most identifiable cities to include built-up, densely populated places of all sizes. If we look at all 188 municipalities in New Jersey that were at least 95 percent built out as of 2007 – a mixed bag of cities big and small, older “urban” suburbs, and stand-alone small towns like Freehold, Red Bank, Hightstown, Princeton, Flemington, Riverton, or Penns Grove – we see the same loss of prominence since World War II: In 1940, these municipalities together contained two-thirds (66.4 percent) of the state’s total population, but by the time of the 2010 Census accounted for only 38.3 percent of the state total.

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[vid]

In Thunder Bay, the city receives less tax per square foot from a semi-rural 1 acre property on a city owned road with city water service and a money-draining bus route than it does from the urban properties downtown, already located on established infrastructure, well-travelled roads (which haven't been repaired in decades) and profitable bus routes.

An acre of land in the shittiest parts of the city cost three to seven times more than rural estate lots, but its the latter everyone wants us to develop. It makes no sense to me.

[M II A II R II K]

Owners Challenge Zoning to Make Room for Adult Children, Elderly Parents


July 18, 2012

By S. MITRA KALITA

Read More: http://online.wsj.com/article_email/...aletleft_email

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Many suburban communities have long made it difficult, or impossible, for homeowners to convert underused space—barns, garages and basements—into rental apartments. But across the U.S., homeowners are pressing for changes in zoning laws to allow rentals while home builders report a rise in demand for houses with in-law suites or quarters with separate entry.

- For decades, many suburban communities have discouraged renting out space in single-family homes, citing concerns including traffic, parking and stress on utilities. Six years ago, Johnson County considered but ultimately didn't pass a measure to allow so-called accessory units. But with both the job and housing markets struggling to recover, "now they are far more sympathetic," Mr. Palos said of the county planning commissioners. At least half a dozen recent meetings have been devoted to the issue.

- One of five college graduates, ages 25 to 34, is living with his or her parents, according to the Pew Research Center. Meanwhile, the number of shared households—meaning an adult not enrolled in school living with another adult who isn't a spouse—rose 11.4% between 2007 and 2010, from 19.7 million households to 22 million, the Census reported last month. Yet the number of households grew by 1.3% during the period.

- The brunt of America's detached single-family homes— 41.9 million, or more than half—are in the suburbs, according to Harvard's Joint Center for Housing Studies; cities and rural areas comprise the rest. The rise in shared households challenges the ideals upon which American suburbs were built, including ample space for families, their homes and their cars. But as baby boomers who raised families in the suburbs now age there, many don't want to sell their homes—or can't.

- Economists say the tight rental market is forcing many people to consider alternatives that in better times were largely dismissed—such as a room in a single-family home. "In some markets, like Washington, New York, San Francisco, [people] can't rent something in the areas they want to rent and they don't want to commute two hours away. said Mark Obrinsky, chief economist for the National Multi Housing Council. "This may be making some communities more open to rentals and to think about housing more broadly than they have."

- Builders of new homes are responding to the new extended American family—and their homes. Last year, Lennar Corp. rolled out a "Next Gen" model, calling it a "home within a home." The houses feature a completely separate unit—with own entry, kitchen, bathroom, bedroom and living area—attached to the main house with a double door similar to adjoining hotel rooms. "We can't build them fast enough," said Jeff Roos, president for Lennar's west region. "People want to live together but not on top of each other." He said the houses are attracting primarily families who use the extra unit for their grown children or elderly parents; as a result, the builder hasn't faced much resistance from municipalities worried about rentals, he said.

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[M II A II R II K]

Mapping Future Growth


August 2, 2012

By JILL P. CAPUZZO

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/05/re...re-growth.html

AFTER years of confusion, disputes and rule changes, New Jersey’s 21 counties surprised many last month by meeting a deadline to produce updated sewer service maps — not only locating infrastructure already in place but also detailing where new infrastructure should go. The maps are expected to guide statewide development well into the future.

- Of course, achieving this milestone hasn’t completely put arguments to rest. While planners, builders and the state’s Department of Environmental Protection hailed the new sewer maps as a first step toward directing smart growth in New Jersey, environmentalists described them as a further example of the Christie administration’s favoring developers over the environment.

- David Pringle, campaign director for the New Jersey Environmental Federation, said a more accurate headline for the maps would be “Gov. Chris Christie reinstates 100,000 acres into development area.” He added: “This is an area we haven’t lost yet. It’s where we have endangered species’ habitats, wetlands and the source of much of our drinking water supply. Once you develop, you can’t go back.”

- The counties’ new sewer maps, which are expected to receive final approval by the end of the year, represent the first in a three-step process to address water management issues. In legislation passed in December, counties were given two additional years to complete the two remaining steps: an analysis of how sewer plants already in place could accommodate the waste generated if everything deemed buildable under current zoning went ahead; and a plan for policing sections outside sewer areas, which use septic systems.

- Timothy J. Touhey, the chief executive of the New Jersey Builders Association, countered that with the current economic uncertainties affecting the industry, builders were disinclined to spend investment dollars in areas that might be deemed environmentally sensitive. Mr. Touhey saw the new sewer maps as providing some clarity going forward. “Anytime you bring predictability and efficiency to a process,” he said, “it’s going to save money for builders. They’re not changing the rules along the way.”

- But Elliott Ruga, the New Jersey Highlands Coalition’s senior policy analyst, expressed concerns that the new mapping would allow for development in areas that had previously been restricted, not only in the Highlands, but also the Pine Barrens and the Barnegat Bay Watershed area. He described the rules governing state water management as “part of the governor’s deregulation of the environment to favor developers.”

- He said he and other environmentalists planned to attend the upcoming public hearings being held in each county to review the new sewer maps. In addition, the Department of Environmental Protection has invited him to take part in a meeting with environmentalists in September to discuss the state’s overall water management plan, though he doesn’t have much confidence that his voice will be heard.

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[M II A II R II K]

The cost of America’s inefficient sprawl


July 31st, 2012

By William Fulton

Read More: http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn....icient-sprawl/

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It’s true that pensions are an increasingly visible strain on city budgets. As the former mayor of Ventura – a California city that is not going bankrupt – I can attest that rapidly rising pension costs are a huge problem. But there are other, more fundamental factors driving cities to bankruptcy. Dealing with the underlying causes of poor revenue creation and out-of-control debt accumulation is a more nuanced – but ultimately more effective – solution to our country’s economic woes.

- Financial resiliency and prosperity is woven into the very fabric of cities. Where businesses go, where houses go, where roads go, where sidewalks go, where farms and natural spaces go – all of these things collectively affect a community’s economic performance and the cost of providing services there. Put things closer together, the services cost less. Put things farther from each other, the services cost more for the jurisdiction and its taxpayers. But in the case of many American towns and cities, we haven’t always planned and built in this fiscally conservative way – and that’s one of the biggest reasons why cities are struggling today.

- When sprawling new development happens, it’s easy to mistake that for prosperity. New buildings and wide roads look great when they first meet the eye. But over time, distant development costs more, gradually bleeding taxpayers and putting the hurt on municipal budgets. Think about it. Every time a new, spread-out subdivision is built far away from existing infrastructure, somebody has to pay for a bunch of roads that serve a small number of residents. And sewer and water lines too. And fire trucks that must travel farther to serve fewer people. And police cars. And ambulances. And school buses. And dial-a-ride buses. And – in many parts of the country – snowplows.

- The cost is enormous. One study in Charlotte, North Carolina, found that a fire station in a low-density neighborhood serves one-quarter the number of households and at four times the cost of an otherwise identical fire station in a less spread out neighborhood. That sort of inefficiency adds up and multiplies as you take into account the hundreds of services cities must provide. What seems cheap on the one hand isn’t always when you look at it over the long haul. Cities can sometimes stay in the black temporarily by approving new development and getting new revenue to pay for the costs. But that’s really just a Ponzi scheme. When a real estate bust hits – as it did starting in 2008 – there’s no more new development to subsidize sprawling development, and cities start to run in the red. That’s partly what happened in Stockton and San Bernardino.

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[M II A II R II K]

A Burning Question for Sun Belt Cities


Aug 10 2012

By Mary Newsom

Read More: http://citiwire.net/columns/a-burnin...n-belt-cities/

It was a hot night in a hot city the day after the hottest month ever recorded in the United States. By 7 the temperature had slid from the 90s to the high 80s, as I pulled up in front of a 1960s split-level on a half-acre lot in a vast subdivision of 2,450 single-family homes. I was 7 miles from the heart of downtown — in Manhattan terms that’s roughly as far as Wall Street to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. But this was not Manhattan. It was Charlotte.

- Like its Sun Belt sisters — Atlanta, Orlando, Dallas for instance — Charlotte boomed in the postwar era, although a more accurate term might be “post-central-air-conditioning era.” And like almost everywhere in America since the 1950s, growth has looked much like the neighborhood I was visiting: houses only (zoning bans other uses), on large lots, built and purchased by people who assumed all residents would own cars and drive to work, shopping or just about anywhere. And that’s the weak underbelly of the Sun Belt boomtowns. Can cities mostly made up of this kind of neighborhood — strung together by corridors of big-box stores, fast-food joints and strip centers, all built on an assumption of cheap fuel, clean air and a stable planetary climate — stay competitive as the world focuses on conserving energy and shrinking carbon emissions?

- Inside the split-level, a small group sat overlooking a back yard of mature trees, talking about the neighborhood’s future. I’d been invited to listen as they followed up a meeting two weeks before, where they had brainstormed a long wish-list of items such as “walkability .. with destinations (ie café/coffee shop),” “convenient public transit,” “general store (could be combined with café/coffee shop),” “farmers market” and so on. “I know you have to have some density to support the retail,” one neighbor said. “I’m not against density,” said another. “I’m an environmentalist. I don’t want sprawl to go on forever.” Yet talk focused on worries about a proposal from city planners trying to nudge more homes into neighborhoods citywide without the traumatic intrusion of apartment towers. The idea is to allow duplexes on any lot zoned for single-family homes, capping the number of duplexes on a block. The neighbors here feared, not unreasonably, that too many rental duplexes could undermine neighborhood stability and lower property values.

- The neighbors didn’t use this word, but their wish list sounded like they wanted urbanity. Yet can an expanse of 2,000 single-family houses on big lots achieve urbanity? The question matters for every urban region that, like Charlotte, is mostly built of neighborhoods like this. Despite the lawns and mature trees here, accumulating research points to the alarming conclusion that a lifestyle of single-family homes on big lots is more environmentally harmful than denser, city-style neighborhoods. When things are closer, people drive less. Transit is feasible. Smaller homes need less heating and cooling. Buildings with shared walls retain more heat. Together, those factors make city-style living easier on the planet. The average single-family detached home consumes 88 percent more electricity than the average apartment in a five- or more-unit building, economist Edward Glaeser wrote in his Triumph of the City. This too: Yearly gas consumption per family declines by 106 gallons as the number of residents per square mile doubles.

- So where does that leave this collection of almost 2,500 houses? Decades of sprawling suburbanization mean this area is now considered “in-town,” yet that description pinpoints location, not neighborhood form. Charlotte’s downtown is a tiny urban core sized for when it was a sleepy, small city too hot for Northerners. By the time Charlotte’s growth zoomed, the era of single-use zoning, interstates and suburban tract homes was well under way. The city’s “historic” close-in neighborhoods are early 20th-century suburbs. When this split-level was built in the 1960s, who had an inking that a home in a tree-shaded subdivision might create more environmental problems than apartments in the heart of downtown? Neighbors here aren’t unfeeling polluters, segregationists or income snobs — at least, no more so than most people. They see a more urban future maybe heading their way and want a say, because, as for most middle-class Americans, protecting their property values in a real sense means protection from old-age poverty.

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[M II A II R II K]

Can city life be exported to the suburbs?


September 7th, 2012

Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...b19_story.html

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Instead of building more typical suburban developments, in the past two decades builders increasingly have been bringing city life to the suburbs and exurbs. Street grids are plotted around central plazas surrounded by condos, apartments and shopping. Public transportation is arranged, parking garages are hidden from view, and all the things that people love about D.C. and cities like it are layered on: public art, sidewalk performers, outdoor movies, street festivals, block parties and food carts.

- The spread of “town center” projects, particularly in the Washington suburbs, is making it harder to distinguish what makes a city a city. The urban neighborhood has become an exportable commodity. By the end of 2011, there were 398 such city replicas — town center or “lifestyle center” projects — in the United States, most of them built in suburbs, in exurbs or on farmland alongside a highway. Since the 1960s, developers had promoted suburban shopping centers as safe, clean escapes from crowded cities. But with urban living back in vogue since the late 1990s, developers are trying to create it outside city limits.

- Critics of town centers consider them soulless corporate replicas — no more real cities than Disney World’s fairy-tale fiberglass-and-concrete showpiece is a real castle. The Village at Leesburg may not feel like Williamsburg in Brooklyn or U Street in D.C., but it demonstrates how smartly county governments and developers are mimicking what feels so unique about the urban experience. They are importing the very streetlights and cobblestones used in city construction, as well as the boutique shops and restaurants that many city-dwellers adore.

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[mhays]

The 398 must be self contained, all-new "town centers," as there must be thousands of urban-format projects in suburbs, as they use the term.

Of course, municipal boundaries don't have much to do with what's suburban vs. urban, except that some people use those terms to separate the central administrative area from smaller administrative areas.

[Omaharocks]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

A Burning Question for Sun Belt Cities


Aug 10 2012

By Mary Newsom

Read More: http://citiwire.net/columns/a-burnin...n-belt-cities/

These type of trite articles drive me nuts. Does the author really not realize that the neighborhoods she's describing are far more plentiful in metro NYC than in metro Charlotte? Sure, NYC's got the density and urban options, but that doesn't negate the sheer volume of suburban crap up and down the northeast corridor. Or in the midwest, or..

This blatant and ugly regionalism is getting old.

[Austinlee]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

Can city life be exported to the suburbs?


September 7th, 2012

Read More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinio...b19_story.html

Even with modern New Urbanist developments that look like an older town center; Or with lifestyle centers, they might have elements of city living density but to me they feel SOO antiseptic, contrived and lack of any of the real energy, soul and even a bit of danger that a real city neighborhood feels like that makes it exciting and makes you feel alive and electric to be there.

I was at a very nice lifestyle center in Naples, Florida called The Strata at Mercato and it was kinda fun and had some nightlife and dancing but I could NOT shake the feeling of me being in a nightclub in essentially a suburban shopping area.

[M II A II R II K]

Front porches making a big comeback


September 19th, 2012

By Haya El Nasser & Paul Overberg

Read More: http://www.usatoday.com/news/story/2...ges/57804752/1

Front porches are making a big comeback.It's not quite a return to Norman Rockwell's Americana, but the rise in the number of new homes with porches hints at a shift in the way Americans want to live: in smaller houses and dense neighborhoods that promote walking and social interaction.

- The data also show that the percentage of homes built without a garage or carport is the highest since the late 1990s. At the housing boom peak in 2004, 8% of new homes had no car shelter. It hit 13% in 2010 and 2011.It's very positive " about public transportation if new construction is starting to be built closer to employment centers or transit," National Association of Home Builders' Stephen Melman says."That's what the market wants," says Christopher Leinberger, a developer outside Philadelphia.

- "You sit on the porch and talk to people walking by without having to invite them in. It's outdoor space without taking up too much space."The desire for a more urban lifestyle is mounting as Baby Boomers become empty-nesters and Millennials, entering their late teens to early 30s, are sensitive to saving the environment and money. The Olson Co. in Seal Beach, Calif., builds affordable homes in urban communities across Orange and Los Angeles counties. It puts up homes on sites that were parking lots, warehouses or office buildings. The homes are smaller (three bedrooms in 1,300-square-foot homes or five bedrooms in 2,000 square feet) than traditional homes and usually have a front porch."It's all about trade-offs," says Scott Laurie, Olson's president.

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[M II A II R II K]

More small towns thinking big


October 18. 2012

Read More: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/n...k-big/1637047/

CARMEL, Ind. — It's pronounced CAR-mel. Not car-MEL, like its more famous Northern California namesake. But after decades of being overshadowed by the other Carmel to the west and by big city Indianapolis less than 20 miles to the south, this little-known Midwestern suburb is gaining prominence.

- Carmel is forging a national reputation because of its embrace of the arts, European-style street design and urban housing — all of which have given this former Quaker village and sleepy bedroom community a cosmopolitan flair unusual in suburbia. It's a trend emerging in an increasing number of commuter suburbs from Texas and Colorado to Alabama, continuing to blur the lines between urban and suburban. Small suburban communities that have no downtowns and are dominated by sprawling housing subdivisions are transforming themselves into cities where people can live, work and play.

- These small but growing towns are applying some of the most forward-thinking planning tenets to create true downtowns, arts districts and new traffic patterns that alleviate congestion and encourage walking. They're changing zoning to build city-style condos and apartments above stores. And they're getting away from big parking lots and strip malls by putting parking underground and behind stores. Often, the downtowns are created around a new city hall, transit stations, arts center — or all three. "We've got to start designing our cities for people first and automobiles second," says Carmel Mayor James Brainard, a lawyer who picked up some European design sensibilities while studying in England.

- Most of the suburbs going through this transformation are affluent (Carmel's median household income is above $100,000). But the pursuit of young professionals and creative talent also is pushing cities to develop more multifamily housing. There are 4,850 apartments in Carmel, about 18% of all housing. More than 1,300 apartments have been built since 2007 and an additional 1,450 are planned. That has helped companies such as Software Engineering Professionals recruit young workers. "We compete against Google and Microsoft, and I don't have an ocean and it's not 68 degrees all year," says Jeff Gilbert, president and CEO.

- Homewood, Ala., pop. 25,000, borders the southern edge of Birmingham and has turned from an aging suburb of small single-family homes into a destination popular for its urban shops and restaurants. The city tore down its old city hall and built one to anchor a new downtown, Mayor Scott McBrayer says. Parking is underneath. Upscale condos top shops and restaurants. A hotel is across the street. "You can walk to grocery stores and shop downtown," he says. Homewood's average age dropped from 60 to under 40 in about 10 years as a result.

- West Jordan, Utah, went from small farming town to bedroom community to a thriving city of 110,000 south of Salt Lake City. Big employers such as Oracle and Dannon Yogurt settled there and attracted development. It sits along the light-rail line that connects Salt Lake City and its suburbs. Plans are in the works to develop retail, commercial and residential properties near the six stops in West Jordan. A proposal to redevelop the downtown is on the table.

- Lakewood, Colo., the third-largest city in the Denver metropolitan area, has about 145,000 people and was the site of Villa Italia, the largest enclosed mall west of the Mississippi until the 1990s. Colfax Avenue, the main drag, stretches through town and was lined with gas stations, motels and subdivisions. Things changed in 2004 when the mall was replaced by the first phase of Belmar, a pedestrian district that aims to re-create the feel of a village square. There are homes, shops, restaurants and a 1-acre plaza that can be a skating rink or concert stage.

- Southlake, Texas, outside Fort Worth and Dallas, was a farming town that had only two-lane road access until the '80s. That's when sewer lines were put in and development boomed. The city began building a downtown in the late 1990s — called Town Square — around a town hall that houses Tarrant County offices. There are stores and restaurants, and the second residential phase of The Brownstones, pricey (from the $600,000s) three-story brick homes that evoke old-world urbanism, is in the works.

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[M II A II R II K]

The side effects of stopping sprawl


October 13, 2012

By Robin Amer

Read More: http://www.wbez.org/series/dynamic-r...-sprawl-103116

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The New Urbanists are calling for higher density, mixed-use neighborhoods and an end to the vicious cycle of far-flung housing developments, automobile reliance and hellishly long commutes. But if no one likes the suburbs, why do so many of us live there? Older American cities like Chicago and New York have actually become less dense over time (even if people are filling in some parts of the old urban core and increasing population in say, the Loop).

- Enter Robert Bruegmann: A professor emeritus at UIC, Bruegmann is something of a contrarian who sees pleasure and possibility where most have seen only cause for panic. His 2005 book Sprawl: A compact history establishes an alternative narrative for America’s – and, so, he argues, the world’s – love of spacious, low-density living. He contends that urban sprawl can produce a more humane way of life, especially in poorer parts of the globe where basic sanitation is lacking, and that when given more resources and a choice, people almost always choose more space over less.

- Many of Bruegmann’s assertions will indeed sound questionable to readers used to hearing about the efficiencies of urban life. For one, he states that on average, public transportation is less energy efficient than car travel when you factor in the wide range in ridership from high peak to low usage hours. But Bruegmann does make a compelling argument for what happens when we try to stop sprawl: He contends there are a lot of unintended consequences.

- He offers some case studies: The green-belt dreams of post-war London, which led to the immense growth of other British cities but also a poor-quality housing stock; Hong Kong, which is wealthy and incredibly dense but also semi-authoritarian; and Nantucket, where historic preservation laws have curbed development but have also caused the average housing prices to skyrocket. Hear Bruegmann go into more detail on the side-effects of stopping sprawl in the audio above.

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[M II A II R II K]

Why walkable communities, sustainable economics, and multilateral diplomacy are the future of American power

Read More: http://www.foreignpolicy.com/article...tegy?page=full

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The ranks of the world's nouveaux riches are swelling. The planet is on track to welcome 3 billion new members of the global middle class in the next 20 years. For those fortunate enough to climb out of poverty, advancement translates into a 300 percent increase in income and resource consumption.

- That's great for each individual, but as a whole, it will strain our planet to the breaking point. We are not ready to meet the needs of this new middle class: Over the last 20 years, the world absorbed just 1 billion new consumers. Commodity prices, which have risen more than 300 percent over the last decade, are poised for further gains -- and we know that when the prices of strategic commodities rise sufficiently, markets do not adapt so much as states intervene to gain or preserve access to them, whether energy, water, food, or strategic minerals.

- In the face of the present danger and in the best tradition of the republic, America's response must be to lead. The country must put its own house in order and, with willing partners, author a prosperous, secure, and sustainable future. The task is clear: The United States must lead the global transition to sustainability. While some great powers and world capitals have been warning of these dangers for some time, it is clear that the effort ultimately requires an upgrade to the current international system. This will require the kind of principled, consistent leadership and hard-nosed geopolitics that only America, at its best, is able to deliver.

- From 2014 to 2029, baby boomers and their children, the millennial generation, will converge in the housing marketplace -- seeking smaller homes in walkable, service-rich, transit-oriented communities. Already, 56 percent of Americans seek this lifestyle in their next housing purchase. That's roughly three times the demand for such housing after World War II. The motivations are common across the country. Boomers are downsizing and working longer, and they fear losing their keys in the car-dependent suburbs. Millennials were raised in the isolated suburbs of the 1980s and 1990s, and 77 percent never want to go back. Prices have already flipped, with exurban property values dropping while those in walkable neighborhoods are spiking.

- It is not only the United States that needs to get its house in order. Within all regional-scale economic areas, the country will work with the global partnership to promote a mode of development that results in prosperity, security, and sustainability for their citizens. Export-led growth and resource-extraction strategies will no longer suffice. Housing, agriculture, and resource productivity will be the drivers of sustainable economic development, producing jobs, investment, and government revenue. While each region will have a unique starting point, global income convergence will unleash substantial trade opportunities as each region develops robust internal markets. Solutions pioneered in one region will find markets in others.

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$450 Billion in Federal Subsidies Tilt U.S. Real Estate Market Toward Sprawl

Read More: http://dc.streetsblog.org/2013/01/09...toward-sprawl/

Real estate in the United States, it turns out, isn’t really guided by “the invisible hand” of the free market. In truth, federal policy puts a finger on the scale in a major way. Even apart from the quasi-governmental Freddie Mac and Fanny Mae, the federal government is the single largest investor in the American real estate market. And according to a new report from Smart Growth America, each year an assortment of subsidies, tax credits, and deductions exerts $450 billion worth of influence on the location and character of American residences and commercial spaces.

That massive influence can distort the market in significant, and insidious, ways. “Viewed as whole, federal funds are not targeted to those most in need, are not targeted to strengthen existing communities and are not targeted to places where people have economic opportunities,” says Smart Growth America’s research team. For starters, according to SGA, not a single federal program is primarily focused on support for existing neighborhoods. Government priorities are often contradictory on this front, with subsidies operating at cross-purposes. One program may subsidize new housing in undeveloped locations, for instance, while another attempts to shore up the city neighborhoods left behind. These programs also fail to factor in what it costs to support real estate development: There is no preference for projects with lower long-term infrastructure costs, leading to higher spending on things like roads and sewers at the local and state levels.

Overall, the report suggests, federal real estate interventions undermine market trends toward the development of more walkable places. About 85 percent of federal housing subsidies flow to single-family housing over multi-family, although only 65 percent of American households are homeowners and the majority of renters live in multi-family buildings. This has hampered the market for rental housing even as demand for multi-family rental housing has soared following the housing bust. “Federal real estate spending is stuck in the past,” said smart growth-focused real estate developer Chris Leinberger in an SGA-sponsored call with reporters yesterday. “It’s not what the market wants today, it’s what the market wanted in the ’70s and ’80s and into the ’90s.” Leinberger added that while consumers are demanding walkable urbanism, federal policy stands in the way of that kind of development — to the detriment of the economy.

Some federal programs, for instance, establish “use limits” on low-cost loans. In order to apply for an Federal Housing Administration loan or loan guarantee, a builder has to limit the amount of commercial space in the project, which ends up favoring more spread out, single-use development over the more walkable, mixed-use approach. The agency just raised the use limit for condo buildings, but more reforms are needed. “Real estate represents 35 percent of the asset base of the country,” Leinberger said. “It’s time to get the real estate industry back engaged.” All these government real estate subsidies add up to a regressive, poorly-targeted, and wasteful use of public funds.

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