The NYT's Cityroom blog offers some hopeful news on getting more healthy food into low-income neighborhoods:

Food stamp purchases at the city’s Greenmarkets have more than doubled in the last year, due in large part to publicity campaigns and the addition of more farmers’ markets to the program.

Food stamp sales from July to November, when the stamps are valid at the markets, doubled to $226,469 in 2009 from $100,772 in 2008, according to numbers released by the City Council on Sunday. While that is but a small fraction of the $200 million that New York’s surging food stamp population receives in benefits each month, it can represent a significant portion of business for farmers. In some low-income neighborhoods, food stamps can make up 70 percent to 80 percent of sales at the markets, according to the report.

A drop in the bucket compared to total food stamp sales, yes, but a solid demonstration that farmers markets can play an important role in getting more fresh food into the hands of inner city residents. These figures were helped, no doubt, by a "coupon" program that gave food stamp recipients $2 for every $5 they spent at the farmers markets. Cityroom may call it a coupon, but it's a healthy food subsidy pure and simple. And that kind of subsidy program is absolutely key to changing buying patterns on a larger scale.

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This is part of a series of interviews with people working to make U.S. communities smarter, greener spaces. Got a suggestion for an interviewee? Send it our way or leave it in the comments section below.

Earlier this year, officials from sixteen U.S. cities gathered in Cambridge, Mass., to compare notes on a surprisingly hot topic: building retrofits. The meeting was held just as the Obama Administration announced the creation of a “Recovery through Retrofit” interagency working group, and hopes were high that federal funding, green jobs, and energy savings would flow forth. I dropped in on that event and spoke with Stockton Williams of conference sponsor Living Cities, a coalition of foundations and banks—including such heavyhitters as the Gates Foundation, Morgan Stanley, and Deutsche Bank—that aims to “improve the lives of low-income people and the urban areas in which they live.” Brimming with quiet confidence, he’s one of those people who leaves you feeling like good things actually can happen—and are happening. I decided to follow up with him to see what came out of the conference, what he thinks of Obama’s urban efforts so far, and what advice he has for the rest of us.

Q. Tell the good people: what is your occupation, and what does it look like on a day-to-day basis?

Stockton WilliamsA. I am senior advisor and director of green economy initiatives for Living Cities, a consortium of global foundations and financial institutions that invests in local efforts to expand opportunity for low-income people in U.S. cities. I work with cities and nonprofit organizations to design and implement building energy retrofit initiatives and other strategies to create clean energy jobs and foster more sustainable urban development. I also work with federal, state, and local officials to develop policies that will make the green economy work for low-income people and places.

Some of what we do involves making grants and loans, which is critically important to getting innovative efforts off the ground. Just as important, we think, is the role we play as a convener of leaders on various issues and source of unbiased expertise and real time market intelligence on the most promising approaches for strengthening cities.

Q. When we met earlier this year, you were at a “Boot Camp” for officials from several cities around the country. How was that experience, and what came out of it?

A. The Living Cities Green Boot Camp convened more than 100 senior local officials and their partners in the energy and workforce sectors from 16 cities for two days of discussion and peer networking on scaling up building energy retrofits. These cities are at the forefront of a growing recognition in communities across the country that building retrofits at scale can create substantial economic and environmental benefits, from progress on climate change to lower costs and new jobs.

At the boot camp we learned a lot about what cities are trying to do, and where they still face challenges. Ensuring that local retrofit initiatives create opportunities for low-income people is one of them. Since the Green Boot Camp, most participating cities have made a lot of progress. We are providing funding and technical support to a number of them individually and creating ways for all of the participants to learn from and support each other’s efforts.

Q. Which cities—either among those who attended the camp or in general—do you think are doing the best job of becoming smarter, greener places to live?

A new wind’s blowing in Cleveland.GCBL.orgA. There is an enormous amount of environmental innovation happening at the local level in all parts of the country. At Living Cities, we are focused on how cities are making the clean energy economy work for low-income people. On that score, Chicago, Cleveland, Minneapolis-St.Paul, Newark, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Seattle are certainly among the national leaders.

Smaller cities like Babylon, N.Y., Charlottesville, Va., and Flagstaff, Ariz., are also doing leading edge work in the area of retrofits.

Q. We occasionally run a column called “Sexy Retrofits,” in which we take a look at high-profile buildings that are getting greener. What role does retrofitting play in fighting climate change, and do you think such splashy projects help the cause or are a distraction?

A. The homes, apartments, commercial properties, and community facilities all around us are a major opportunity for achieving greater efficiency and reducing global warming pollution. Buildings in the U.S. consume 72 percent of the electricity and 55 percent of the natural gas—and account for 40 percent of greenhouse gas emissions. Off the shelf technologies and common sense construction practices can cut building energy use by as much as 40 percent. In the process, building retrofits save money, reduce carbon emissions, and create jobs. Critically, many retrofit jobs—from construction to audits to property management—offer opportunities to train low-income workers for long-term careers.

Splashy projects can be beacons of innovation and inspiration, as long as they are understood as such. But most of the climate benefit from better buildings comes from the less sexy improvements—unless you think a caulking gun is sexier than a solar panel.

Q. What are the biggest challenges that officials intent on creating more sustainable cities face?

Sign of the times.A. One set of challenges is related to the recession and foreclosure crisis, which has hammered city budgets, forced cutbacks in essential services, and limited many cities’ ability to make the progress they had hoped on climate protection plans. Another set of challenges flow from the reality that a true clean energy economy is only just emerging in this country, so local governments, like the rest of us, are still learning how to make the transition.

Finally, public policies are often a barrier to greener cities. These include federal transportation programs that encourage excessive road building and sprawl, housing policies that drive demand for larger homes on larger lots away from the urban core, and energy policies that underinvest in incentives for energy efficiency and renewable energy in the built environment. They also include local building codes, zoning policies, stormwater management procedures, and land-use requirements that undermine and sometimes prevent cooler, smarter, and greener growth and development. The good news is that public policy as well as consumer demand is clearly starting to shift; both are demanding greener cities, and as the economy recovers, we will see much faster progress at the local level.

Q. As you look at the current administration’s actions on urban and transportation issues so far, what jumps out as the most promising? What do you wish they’d put more emphasis on?

A. The administration has made a strong commitment to environmental sustainability as a central priority in its broader urban and transportation policies, stronger than any previous administration. We will see this reflected in the renewed debate this fall on cap and trade legislation and the forthcoming rewrite of the major transportation laws.

More broadly, there is an unprecedented degree of joint policymaking occurring between the federal departments of housing, transportation, energy, labor and the Environmental Protection Agency on sustainability issues. One example is the Recovery through Retrofit Interagency Working Group, which is developing a comprehensive blueprint for retrofitting the nation’s residential housing stock.

We are working with the administration to make sure policies to spur the clean energy economy also expand opportunity for low-income people. That cannot be an afterthought; it needs to be at the top of the list. The administration has very talented, dedicated people working on this, but prior experience and current budget and political realities underscore the need to be vigilant, relentless, and insistent on this point.

Q. If you could wave your magic wand and make one thing happen in every city right now, what would it be?

A. Cities would have the resources to meet the basic needs of their citizens, with a little left over—and more available from the federal government to reward the leaders—to accelerate their transition to being greener communities.

Q. Do you have any advice for how people can make change in their own communities?

A. Our economic and environmental future depends mostly on cities. Every citizen has a stake in their city’s plan—or lack of one—for responding to the catastrophic threat of climate change. Find out what your city is doing, ask how you can help, and send any message you can to your federal elected leaders that we can’t wait any longer to act as a nation.

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This article is part of a collaboration with Planetizen, the web's leading resource for the urban planning, design, and development community.

Traffic is essentially "an engineering issue," says author Tom Vanderbilt. "But there's also a layer of culture."

That layer of culture determines, to a large extent, how traffic can become a problem. This idea is explored in Vanderbilt's 2008 book Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us), a Planetizen Top Book of the year. He recently expanded on that idea for a discussion about traffic put on by Zocalo Public Square in (where better?) Los Angeles. A write-up of the event and video of the discussion with UCLA researcher Eric Morris is also available.

Tom Vanderbilt discusses his book Traffic as UCLA researcher and New York Times Freakonomics blogger Eric Morris listens.Courtesy Planetizen.comPeople in L.A. love these sorts of discussions. We've got a mess of a traffic problem in this city -- from intense congestion to freeway domination to a late-blooming public transit system. Something about events focused on transportation and traffic just seems to pull people together here, almost like a support group. "Hi, I'm Nate, and I have a problem with traffic congestion."

The human impact of traffic is easy to see, but less apparent is the human cause -- a point made crystal clear by Vanderbilt's work. Obviously it's humans causing traffic, but what about humans is actually the source? What about how we act, interact, and live makes a bunch of drivers into a traffic jam? Vanderbilt's book cites a lot of data that offers some indication. The data shows how men cause more of a certain kind of accident than women, and how teenagers cause more crashes when there are other teens in the car with them, and a variety of other demographic- and behavior-based conclusions. These may be fairly straightforward, but Vanderbilt's discussion brings up what may be a more important if underappreciated cause of most traffic: the lack of an interactive social structure in driving.

"Traffic has a lack of a feedback system," says Venderbilt. "There's no repeat interaction."

So if I never have to see you again on the road, am I really going to be as courteous as I would be if I saw you every day? Most people probably want to think yes, but their actions say no.

Sittin' in Silicon Valley.richardmasoner via flickrVanderbilt cites the work of psychologist Philip Zimbardo, who researches why regular people can be convinced to do terrible or evil things. One of his explanations is a concept he calls de-individuation -- the act of disregarding other people as individuals. Vanderbilt draws the connection to traffic, where it's not a person driving a car next to you in traffic, but just a car. It's just a box on wheels -- and it's in your way.

Interaction between drivers is seen by many as a way to improve safety, but also a way to improve efficiency. If people have an idea about what others are going to do before they do it, they can react accordingly, or at least not be surprised. It's also the principle behind the move to remove signs from roadways. By removing that reliance on clearly defined rules, people are forced to fall back on their highly evolved but incredibly elemental communication skills. In the end, it's all about being cognizant of each other and working together to get where we all need to go. After all, that's not a finite resource. I can get to my job on time just as well as anyone else on the road, and my success does not limit theirs.

Maybe what we really need is a support group. Or at least the realization that, as fellow Planetizen Interchange blogger Josh Stephens once wrote, we're not in traffic, we are traffic.

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Vast potential: a farm grows in Brooklyn. Photo: Added ValueAs I prepare for five days of announcements next week, when USDA plans to unveil its new "Know Your Farmer, Know Your Food" initiative, the buzz across my desk is about the potential for urban agriculture.

EPA reminds that brownfield moneys can be used to convert polluted land into working farms in inner-city areas. I saw the excellent film "The Garden," documenting the destruction of the largest community farm in the U.S. (South Central LA) in 2006. Will and Erika Allen are coming to Minnesota again. Over breakfast, friends asked about the potential for urban food production.

I think the potential is enormous, especially in formerly industrial cities, where the big factories are not going to come back, but there are large tracts of vacant land that already have water mains (think irrigation) running under them. Each of these cities spends billions of dollars for food, and can generate significant local income by building the farms and distribution channels needed to cycle that food within city borders. We'll also need to grow new urban farmers, and tap the excellent skills that many new immigrants already have in growing food.

Hoping the USDA will focus next week on turning urban lands into productive farms, I've finished revising a brief resource guide for urban agriculture I handed out at the Urban Extension Educators conference when I spoke there in May. Let me know if this is useful, or how to improve it!

Did you know that forty-one percent of all U.S. agricultural commodities are sold from farms in metropolitan counties?

Were you aware that 55% of the money made from producing farm commodities was made in metropolitan areas in 2007 ($15.7 billion of $28.7 billion)?

Moreover, Department of Defense studies show that Victory Gardens during World War II produced 40% of all produce consumed by Americans, after two seasons of gardening. This shows the potential for small-scale activity adding up to a big difference.

This is all part of a bigger shift that America, and USDA, are going to need to make -- to focus on food, people, and communities, rather than primarily on commodities. That, in fact, is the theme of this year's Community Food Security Coalition Conference in Des Moines from October 10-13 -- "From Commodities to Communities."

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The cermonial urban-turbine installation.indigo12west.comTwo weeks ago in Portland, Oregon, a new 23-story building added something you don't usually see in an urban setting: a series of four Skystream wind turbines, with a total capacity of 9.6kW.

There are several reasons why wind turbines are a rarity atop highrises -- beyond the obvious one: our power infrastructure makes changing from traditional sources of electricity difficult, expensive, and seemingly unnecessary. (As long as you can convince yourself that the planet isn't really warming and that 15,000 Americans don't die prematurely each year from breathing in filthy air from coal-fired power plants, and that the price of energy is going to stay stable and ... you get the idea.)

Wind power in an urban setting comes with its own set of challenges.

A natural lack of regular winds forceful enough to generate meaningful amounts of electricity.

Most "wind farms" are located in areas with high, steady winds and use giant turbines. In fact, the trend has been to build larger windmills capable of generating ever more electricity.

In 2006, Technology Review ran an interesting piece about plans for a new turbine with a rotor with a 140 meter diameter.

Sometimes, however, smaller still is beautiful -- and more appropriate.

So some manufactures, like the Flagstaff, Ariz.-based Skystream, have been building scaled down wind turbines like the ones on top of Twelve|West.

One advantage of the Skystream 3.7 is its lower wind speed requirement. With its 12-foot diameter, the rotor can begin generating electricity with winds blowing at just 8 miles per hour. It reaches peak production (2.4kW) at 29 mph and will continue to operate at winds up to 60 mph. (The Skystream 3.7 is built to withstand gusts of up to 140 mph.)

Wind flow in urban areas is disrupted by other buildings.

Placing the turbines on top of a 23-story building, and then mounting them on 45-foot poles puts the blades at an elevation of 82 meters (270 feet), high enough to escape the distortions of the surrounding built environment.

Still, critics of the project have said that the expense of putting the four turbines into operation outweighs the financial payback delivered in energy savings.

The building's other eco-features include graywater in the toilets -- leading to this helpful warning.But Robert Packard, a managing partner of the architectural firm ZGF, which occupies the lower four floors of Twelve|West and also designed the building, thinks those critics are missing the point. Packard told the Oregonian newspaper, "[We're] trying something new. It's not a gimmick. Not only are we learning, but we can share it with the world, add to the body of knowledge that's out there."

Kind of like when solar photovoltaic panels were just getting popular. Not every idea that worked well in the lab made it in the real (rooftop) world.

I'm hoping the information they get from the four turbines helps the shift from a fossil-fuel to a renewable energy economy. But I have to admit, just the sight of windmills spinning on urban rooftops -- 20 or more stories up -- has an appeal all its own.

Osha Gray Davidson blogs regularly for Grist and edits The Phoenix Sun, where this post first appeared in a different form.

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This marks the first of a series of interviews with people working to make U.S. communities smarter, greener spaces. Got a suggestion for an interviewee? Send it our way or leave it in the comments section below.

Tim Halbur’s career has included a stint as a journalist for NPR, co-producer of an environmental-justice driving tour of California’s I-5, and founder of an online media production company whose clients ranged from HarperCollins to the American Institute of Architects. With a masters in urban and regional planning, Tim puts his obsession to work every day as managing editor of Planetizen, which recently released a two-DVD set called The Story of Sprawl. It’s a weirdly compelling collection of short films from the 1930s through the ‘60s focused on cities and transportation, with commentary from the likes of Andrés Duany and James Howard Kunstler. We checked in with Tim to find out how the DVDs came about, which cities he thinks are the smartest, and what urban-planning changes he’d make if he could wave his magic wand.

Q. What’s your occupation, and what does your work look like on a day-to-day basis?

A. I’m managing editor of Planetizen.com, a news and information website for the urban planning, design, and development community. My average day involves trawling the web for news I think will be of interest to our audience, editing opinion pieces by experts in the field, and putting together our books and DVDs.

Q. You recently compiled and released a two-DVD set called The Story of Sprawl —how did that come about, and how is it being received? Were there any surprises along the way?

A. I found a film a few years back called “Give Yourself the Green Light.” It was produced by General Motors in 1954 to advocate for building more and better highways. And regardless of the propagandistic element, it struck me as a fascinating snapshot of the time. You can see that as the population grew and people moved to the outskirts of cities, the existing road network wasn’t very efficient. But the roadbuilding that GM was promoting led to a brutal system of transportation planning that effectively cut the heart out of many of our cities.

So as I collected more films like “Green Light,” I began to see a story emerge about how sprawl happened that was richer than the one I’d learned in planning school. Eventually, I chose eight films that I think explain in detail why so many people abandoned cities, why the spread of major freeways and suburban housing happened so quickly, and the price we’ve paid for this disinvestment.

Q. The films in The Story of Sprawl paint a pretty dark picture of urban areas—busy, dirty, violent, poor, unhealthy—but they seem to also convey a bit of hope. In one, the narrator says, “If we plan well, urban Americans will someday enjoy more of the advantages of a large city without many of the penalties they now are forced to pay.” Do you think we’ve seen that promise fulfilled? Or is it still in the works?

The Story of SprawlPlanetizen.comA. Well, I think the interesting thing about what these films show us is that the problems facing our cities are not new. The effect of the spread of suburbia and auto-oriented development was already dawning on urban thinkers by the early 1960s as they saw a disinvestment in downtowns and a growing lack of civic culture. Unfortunately, many of their solutions ended up being just as bad as the problem.

The picture of cities being dirty, violent, and poor is where I think the propaganda aspect of the films kicks in. Cities were certainly dirty with pollution through the period of the 1930s-‘60s, which these films cover. And health issues were a reasonable concern with crowded conditions in big cities back in the early 20th century. But I believe these films were edited to make things look much worse, and again, the solutions they proposed were well-intentioned, but wrong. The issue of cities being “clean” led to the creation of those depressing housing projects with empty stretches of grass around them, where residents would supposedly enjoy being surrounded by a healthier atmosphere. Today we know better.

As to being able to enjoy the advantages of a large city without paying the penalties, I think in some ways yes: we’ve learned more about how to make downtown urban areas work well. But I also believe that there are always tradeoffs. As David Sucher, who wrote a book called City Comforts, put it, people today want an “urban village.” And those terms are in many ways contradictory. Urbanity means accepting some chaos, anonymity and proximity to strangers. Village life is about stability and community. You can work to bring aspects of both to city life, but city living is really a choice to embrace vibrancy, which includes a little chaos and grit.

Q. Which cities in the U.S. do you think are doing a particularly good job of becoming more livable, greener places?

A. Portland is the obvious answer. It has managed to create an “urban village” more than anywhere else in the U.S. But David Owen, a writer for The New Yorker, has made a persuasive argument that Manhattan is the greenest city around in his new book, Green Metropolis. The average New Yorker consumes about one-fourth the electricity a resident of Dallas uses, just from the advantages of a dense infrastructure and effective transit.

For me, density really is the underrated way to get green. I get frustrated seeing the focus on green building, when the same sort of 3,000-square-foot tract housing is being built and declared sustainable. We need to be focusing on designing high-quality, comfortable but relatively compact spaces that are unlike the cheap ‘70s apartment buildings we’ve been plagued with so that people want to live together. There are tremendous social and environmental benefits to be had from living more densely.

Q. What has the Obama Administration done right so far for cities? What improvements would you like to see?

A. I think it’s too early to tell. The Administration has been a bit distracted by the end of society as we know it, so I don’t blame them for taking a slow approach to urban issues. The proposed high-speed rail corridors would be a big boon, and I hope they get built. Otherwise, they’re showing a good grasp of the issues and are rightly focusing on the regional perspective. Too many of today’s problems stem from the inability to create consensus among the various small governments in large metropolitan areas.

Q. If you could wave your magic wand and decree one big change in the world of urban planning and architecture, what would it be?

The City of Roses thinks regionally.A. Given my answer above, I’m tempted to change local governments to be more beholden to a regional elected authority. Portland has been able to make effective change ... because the voters created a regional authority with teeth that could do things like create metro transit and enforce urban growth boundaries.

But being a utopian at heart, I’d really like to sweep my wand and try something more dramatic, like taking this “urban village” idea to the extreme and refashioning America’s cities into more functional structures. The problem with sprawl is that it destroyed the city/small town framework that worked so well. City planning is a delicate balance when practiced correctly. You can see that in cities in Europe that retain their forms. Each part of the city, from the countryside where food is produced to the economic heart of downtown, has its proper place in the structure. For the last 60 years, we’ve ignored all of that because cars got us everywhere.

Q. Where do you live, and what do you love about it? What would you change? Any suggestions for what people can do in their own neighborhoods?

A. I live in a great neighborhood in Los Angeles now, near one of my favorite urban public spaces, the Fairfax Farmers’ Market. It’s a series of small stalls that house delicious food stands, produce, and knickknacks, and it’s been there since the 1930s. I’m new to L.A., and I’ve really fallen in love with it. Tom Waits recently said that L.A. is “like a battery. It’s always plugged in.” I feel that since I’ve been here.

As to what people can do to create change in their neighborhoods, I’d say seek out your local community non-profit group focused on land use issues, and support the creation of walkable communities and better transit. Groups like TransForm in the San Francisco Bay Area and the Michigan Land Use Institute are big enough to make change on the local level, but not so big that they lose touch with their communities.

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Our new neighborhood fresh food market.What I find most striking about my mother-in-law's memories of the neighborhood where I live, and where she spent her childhood in the 1940s, is how many businesses our little residential section of town once boasted. Back then, there was a grocery store, hardware store, barber shop, two drugstores, a tailor, and several corner stores.

Those businesses all disappeared in the following decades, as the streetcar lines were dismantled, families acquired cars, and shopping migrated out to supermarkets and, later, malls and big-box stores. At the low point, my neighborhood hosted little more than a lone convenience store, great for snacks and beer, but not much else.

Recently that began to change: first a restaurant opened and then a tea shop. And then, in what many of my neighbors greeted as nothing short of a gift from heaven, a small fresh food market opened. Stop by at 6 in the evening and you'll find a row of bicycles out front and the store's narrow aisles packed with people pondering their dinner options.

This little store is one of hundreds of new neighborhood businesses that have opened in the last few years in what might be both the beginnings of a revival of small retail and one of the more important strategies we have for countering global warming.

So far, the public debate about cars and climate change has been dominated by fuel economy. But driving has been growing at such a rapid pace -- total miles driven in the U.S. rose 60 percent between 1987 and 2007 -- that even a big advance in fuel economy is likely to be wiped out by ever more miles on the road.

According to calculations by Steve Winkelman of the Center for Clean Air Policy, even if we achieve a major improvement in fuel economy (new vehicles averaging 55 mpg), cut the carbon content of fuel by 15 percent, and slow the growth rate for driving significantly, by 2030 greenhouse-gas emissions from transportation will be only slightly below 1990 levels.

That's nowhere near the 60-80 percent reductions we need by mid-century to avoid the worst effects of global warming. Perhaps electric cars will come online fast enough to close the gap, but we would do well to hedge our bets by also finding ways to make daily life not require quite so much driving.

This is where local stores come in. Academics who study travel behavior say that the presence of neighborhood businesses is a major factor in how much we drive. Dozens of studies have found that people who live near small stores walk more for errands and, when they do drive, their trips are shorter. And that's not all: a more surprising research finding is that small retailers influence how likely people are to take public transit to work.

One study, led by Susan Handy, an expert on travel behavior at the University of California-Davis, examined eight neighborhoods and found that how often people walked for errands closely tracked both the number and proximity of stores. In the neighborhood with the most businesses, where homes were on average only one-fifth of a mile from the nearest store, 87 percent of residents regularly ran errands on foot, averaging 6.3 shopping trips on foot per month. In the neighborhood where the nearest store was an average of three-fifths of a mile away, only one-third of residents reported walking to a store in the previous month and averaged only 1.4 errands on foot per month.

Another study by Handy found that residents of an Austin, Texas, neighborhood that has numerous small stores within a half-mile radius made 20 percent of their food shopping trips on foot and logged 42 percent fewer miles driving to supermarkets than residents of two Austin suburbs that lacked neighborhood stores.

The potential impact of these findings is quite significant. Shopping accounts for 1 in 5 trips we take and has been the fastest growing category of driving by far. In the late 1970s, the average household drove 1,200 miles a year for shopping. That figure has skyrocketed to about 3,600 miles today. What changed? Stores got a lot bigger. Between 1982 and 2002, more than 100,000 small retailers disappeared. The big-box stores that replaced them were many times larger, far fewer in number, and thus served larger geographic areas.

Reversing the super-sizing of retail and bringing back neighborhood stores would not only cut the miles we chalk up running errands. It could also prompt more public transit use. A study of 3,200 households in King County, Wash. (the Seattle area), found that the choice to commute by transit was strongly influenced by the number of retail stores near home and work (probably because people could opt for the bus and still run a few errands on the way home). Overall, the study found, residents of the most walkable neighborhoods logged 26 percent fewer miles than those in the most auto-oriented.

Critics have argued that these studies merely reveal people's preferences: those who like to walk choose neighborhoods where they can walk. But recent research has controlled for this "self-selection" bias -- by, for example, tracking people as they relocate -- and found that preferences matter but so too does the built environment. Those who favor driving walk more and drive less if they move to areas where there are places to walk to.

But the self-selection debate may be moot anyway. Demand for mixed-use neighborhoods is growing rapidly and may have already outstripped supply. In a new report, CEOs for Cities analyzed sales data for 90,000 houses and found that, in 13 of 15 markets, those in neighborhoods with higher Walk Scores have held value better than those in areas lacking destinations within walking distance.

These shifting preferences have the potential to remake the American landscape, but only if our public-policy priorities change too. Right now, everything from federal transportation spending to state economic-development incentives and local land-use policies heavily favor driving over transit, big-box stores over neighborhood businesses, and sprawl over infill.

Reversing these policies will be no small task. But bringing small businesses into the debate could improve the odds in two key ways. For one, having more stores within walking distance is the tangible, enticing upside of planning concepts that otherwise seem abstract, if not downright unappealing, like "density" and "street connectivity."

Engaging independent business owners could also provide a powerful counterweight to big business groups like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which is now waging an all-out offensive to ensure that, when Congress undertakes its once-every-six-years renewal of federal transportation spending, the new program heavily favors highway expansion.

On the other side of the debate is Transportation for America, a coalition of groups favoring more investment in transit and smarter land-use planning. The coalition recently gained a new member: the American Independent Business Alliance, an eight-year-old national network that represents about 15,000 independent businesses (and on whose board I serve).

"It's no coincidence that you rarely find local retailers in the big shopping centers that develop along highways," explained the group's outreach director, Jeff Milchen. "What we hear from many independent business owners is they compete more successfully integrated into neighborhoods, where their personal service and small scale are assets."

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The Truth About ... via flickrForget letting your fingers do the walking: A study released today shows that homebuyers are letting their wallets do the walking, paying more for homes in neighborhoods where you can get around without wheels.

Conducted by CEOs for Cities, the analysis looked at 94,000 real-estate transaction in 15 markets across the U.S., from Fresno, Calif., to Arlington, Va. Researchers found that in 13 of the markets, housing values were higher in more walkable neighborhoods. (What about the other two markets? In Bakersfield, Calif., no correlation was found; in the other, which starts with Las Vegas and rhymes with Armageddon, housing values were lower in walkable neighborhoods.)

Using data from Walk Score, the study found that houses in hoods with above average walkability commanded $4,000 to $34,000 more than those in hoods with average walkability. Characterized as the first to put a dollar value on walkability, the study could be big news for municipal leaders and mere mortals alike, said CEOs for Cities head Carol Coletta: “These findings ... tell us that if urban leaders are intentional about developing and redeveloping their cities to make them more walkable, it will not only enhance the local tax base but will also contribute to individual wealth by increasing the value of what is, for most people, their biggest asset.”

But wait, you’re saying (as one staffer did at our news meeting this morning): Couldn’t this connection just be due to the fact that walkable areas tend to be metro areas, and that makes them more expensive in general? The smarties behind the study are all over that:

Using an economic technique called hedonic regression, we estimate how much market value homebuyers implicitly attach to houses with higher Walk Scores ... Our statistical approach controlled for key characteristics of individual housing units (their size, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, age and other factors), as well as for the neighborhoods in which they were located (including the neighborhood’s income level, proximity to the urban center and relative accessibility to employment opportunities). After controlling for all of these other factors that are known to influence housing value, our study showed a positive correlation between walkability and housing prices in 13 of the 15 housing markets we studied.”

They had me at hedonic regression.

For me, the question is: Should we have to pay more for the privilege of being able to walk to a grocery store or school or post office or local pub? Walking—which the study terms a “largely unmeasured and grossly under appreciated component of the urban transportation system”—is good for our health and good for the planet, not to mention good for things like car-insurance premiums. Should such a set-up be available only to those who can afford it? Our old friend Clark Williams-Derry over at Sightline offers this take:

What the CEOs for Cities study shows is that there is a real and measurable pent up demand for homes in walkable neighborhoods. For decades, sprawl apologists have argued that low-density suburban development was somehow “natural,” because it’s what homebuyers “prefer.” By now, though, it’s clear that many homebuyers are willing to pay a premium for walkability. The real problem is that the demand for walkable homes exceeds the supply—which pushes up the price.

To me, that argues for policies that are designed to increase the supply of homes in walkable neighborhoods. That’s good for affordability, good for reducing transportation costs, and a great way to help more people add walking to their daily routines.

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The green-building news is coming so fast and furious it can be hard to delve deeply into each story. So here’s a survey of a few of the shiniest, brand-spankin’-newiest, innovativest projects taking shape:

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Vancouver’s vision for its Olympic village looks dazzling from afar, like the city itself. Up close the details get hairier.Photo: ecstaticistThe city of Vancouver, British Columbia, has a lot to brag about. It's got an enviable location, wedged between the Strait of Georgia and the snow-capped Coast Mountains. It's a perennial winner of "most livable cities" rankings, thanks in part to its parks, arts, and the Canadian social safety net. Its youthful mayor, Gregor Robertson, talks up the city as the greenest in North America and has laid out a plan to make it the most sustainable city in the world.

So you better believe the city will be showing off its environmental credentials when it hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics next February. "Greening" the Olympics has become an expectation, after all (see Turin's recycling programs and Beijing's attempt at air quality improvements). As the largest city ever to host the Winter Games, Vancouver intends to make sustainability central to its Olympic legacy.

The centerpiece of those efforts will be the athletes' village at Southeast False Creek, an 80-acre rehabbed brownfield that lies across a "false creek" from the downtown peninsula. There, a $1 billion city-within-a-city is rising in preparation for next year's Olympic and Paralympic athletes. For years the city eyed the site as a place to try out a new kind of sustainable neighborhood. Winning the Olympic bid in 2003 provided the impetus.

Artist's rendering of the Olympic village. Watch a slide show about the project.The development is distinctively European in its design, an odd influence in a city that can already feel more Asian than North American (See a slide show about the project.) Elsewhere in the city, the "Vancouverist" architectural style highlights slender towers that provide high density while preserving open view corridors (to take in the surrounding water and mountains). But at Southeast False Creek, short, squat buildings push to the edge of narrow streets and courtyards, evoking Amsterdam more than Singapore. Plazas and inner courtyards emphasize shared space, and the streetscape design draws on the Dutch concept of woonerf, a combined sidewalk/street that uses paving and landscaping to encourage walkers, cyclists, slow-moving cars, and children at play to make room for each other.

"You're creating a better community feel because you have more eyes on the street, more people with contact with the street level, and less of that height that keeps people apart from each other," said Robin Petri, the city's project engineering manager.

Southeast False Creek's 16 buildings will include market-rate and affordable housing, a senior housing center, retail shops, a grocery store, a pharmacy, and eventually an elementary school. There are enough clean energy and conservation features to make the head spin—bioswales and wetlands to treat runoff water, rainwater cisterns that irrigate green roofs and flush gray-water toilets, solar-powered trash compactors, heat drawn from sewage pipes, a radiant heating and cooling system.

The development's layout emphasizes communal space, as with this waterfront boardwalk, a nod to one of the site's past uses as a shipyard.Photo: Jonathan HiskesIf it sounds a lot like every other Cool Green Building Project, fair enough. The village is LEED-ey, with expectations that 15 of the buildings will be certified gold and one platinum, under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standard. The development is also participating in the pilot LEED neighborhood program. But it's not the highest-rated LEED project—that distinction currently goes to Dockside Green in nearby Victoria, B.C.

Southeast False Creek is notable more for its size—planners predict an eventual population of more than 10,000—and for the international attention it will receive in the Olympic spotlight.

Design manager Roger Bayley summarized the hope that the village's influence in architecture and planning circles will stretch far beyond Vancouver: "I personally believe it could have a very significant influence," he said. "It's being constructed on a scale and in a timeframe that is literally unheard of, except maybe in China. And it's embracing a whole series of innovations that I think many people … will be extraordinarily impressed with."

That's one potential legacy. There's another possibility. Seven months before opening ceremonies, a string of problems nearly as numerous as the clean-tech features threatens to eclipse the project's sustainability goals.

Overshadowing and complicating every other trouble is a financing mess rooted in last fall's credit crisis and mired in the real estate ­­­slump. The project was to be the first Olympic village that was largely funded by private sources and sold as market housing (they are typically built by governments and used afterward as low-income or senior housing). The city, which owns the land, was reportedly glad to avoid the responsibility of supervising construction and financing, while still standing to turn a profit on the project. It ceded much of that work to the developer Millennium Development Corporation. But Millenium's funding mechanism collapsed last October when the New York hedge fund Fortress Investment Group pulled out of the project, leaving the city holding the tab. The city council made arrangements, first in secret and then publicly, to shore up the project with tax money—now figured at $450 million Canadian ($403 million U.S.). City leaders hope they can recover the cost when the units are sold to private buyers for use after the Olympics. Of course, that depends on the real estate market.

A woonerf, or shared-used street, in Matsumoto, Japan. Southeast False Creek will employ similar narrow, winding byways. Photo: Cheryl & RichOther setbacks: Construction lags behind schedule, pressuring workers to meet a Nov. 1 deadline, when the development company hands control of 1,100 units to Olympic organizers. In late June, reports arose of a possible mold problem because of improper pipe installation. A goal that vegetation would cover 50 percent of the project's roof space has been scrapped, reportedly because insurers worried about flooding. [Correction: Petri said the project is on track to meet this target.]

The city also scaled back the amount of low-income and middle-income housing it originally pledged to include. It will now subsidize 252 low-income units, a target that has nearly doubled in cost, from $65 million to $110 million, The Vancouver Sun reports. The city has yet to determine who will qualify and how to select tenants for the subsidized dwellings, Petri said.

British Columbia's anti-Olympic protestors have also focused some of their disapproval on the development, even though Olympic housing will occupy only 50 of Southeast False Creek's 80 acres. Much of the development will be built after the games, and of course the whole village will last far longer than its use for the games. Still, planners have battled the perception that the short-term event influenced the city's long-term plan.

"This isn't really about the Olympics," said Petri. "The Olympics just provided us with a fixed timeline and an opportunity to give it lots of attention. But this was planned way before the Olympics. Whether someone's excited about the Olympics or not is really independent from how they feel about the site."

The project’s blocky buildings achieve the same density as many of the city’s tower housing developments, according to the city's project engineering manager, Robin Petri.Photo: Jonathan HiskesIt will be interesting to see which storylines prevail when the international media trains its eye on Vancouver next winter—the financial mess, the shrinking social-housing target, the clean-energy and water-use technologies, the attempt to build not just green buildings but an entire sustainable neighborhood, or something else altogether. Organizers have begun releasing an elaborate online book on their vision for the site, in monthly segments, to help along those glowing profiles. (To be fair, the publication includes some good information, not just PR.)

Assessing the project's long-term influence will be more difficult. Locally, it may wear down some of the resistance that comes with trying to build things differently. Bayley, the lead designer, spoke this spring about seeking permits to use harvested rainwater to flush toilets.

"You'd think that would be a simple thing to do, but persuading municipal authorities was not as simple as we'd hoped," he said. "We ended up putting signs on the toilet saying 'do not drink this water.' Then they wanted it translated into dog and cat."

Petri added later, "But now they've approved it, and the next attempt at this won't be as new to them." She said the project would help permitters, contractors, engineers, landscape architects, and others who work on it become comfortable with high-efficiency techniques. From there, she hopes, they might spread throughout the building and planning trades. In other words, despite all the attention that comes with being novel, the real goal of Southeast False Creek is to help such projects become normal.

Watch a slide show about Vancouver's Olympic village at Southeast False Creek:

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Last week, Time magazine asked, "Why Are Southerners So Fat?"

There's no simple answer, of course. Poverty, culture and climate all play a role in the South's high obesity rates. But one factor that's increasingly blamed by everyone from medical journals to the CDC is how Southern cities are built.

"The South doesn't have many bus stops," Time writes. "Public transportation is paltry, and for most people, the best way to get around is by car. ... States like Mississippi and Tennessee also have a surprising lack of sidewalks, discouraging even the most eager pedestrians. Many roads are narrower than those in the North -- where streets have wider shoulders to accommodate winter snow -- and people who want to bike or jog find themselves uncomfortably close to traffic."

All of which speaks to the fact that cities matter -- to our health, as well as to the health of the planet. When we think of the environment in this country, we generally conjure up images in our mind of cuddly wildlife and pristine wilderness -- the kind of things that we go on vacation to see, not what's around us every day. But how we build our cities can play a very important role in preserving and protecting the environment.

"When it comes to global warming," Time says, "green acres aren't all that green -- life in the crowded city is actually much more climate-friendly."

There's a tendency in America to believe that everyone wants to live on two-acre lots in the suburbs, but city living has made a comeback in recent years, in part because cities are working to improve quality of life and sprawl is turning out to be not-so-sustainable or desirable to many people.

Well-designed transportation systems, mixed-use development, progressive planning, energy and water conservation, recycling programs, open space preservation -- all of these factors can help make a city more friendly to the environment and more livable for its residents.

A new website known as Smarter Cities, which launched earlier this month, aims to highlight the potential of cities to help reshape the environment responsibly. The site grew out of the Smarter Cities Project, formerly part of National Geographic's Green Guide and now affiliated with the Natural Resources Defense Council.

Smarter Cities ranks communities across the country with a population of 50,000 or more on criteria of sustainability and livability. The data is collected and crunched with the help of a researcher from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

The result: "One of the nation's most comprehensive and robust databases of U.S. urban progress toward sustainability," according to the Smarter Cities site.

So how green is your city? It will probably come as no surprise that among the nation's largest metropolises, perennial greenies such as Seattle, San Francisco and Portland topped the list (although you might be surprised at some of the other names in the top 15). Madison, Wis., is the top medium-sized city, while Bellingham, Wash., gets the small city nod.

Smarter Cities is far from the only attempt to identify the nation's greenest burgs, and not everyone is going to agree. The criteria used, how they're weighted, studying cities vs. metro areas, etc., can all make a difference. So while the rankings can be fun, it's more important to look at what they're based on and get a sense of what your city is doing right -- and where it needs improvement.

Is your city on the right path?

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Could. Not. Resist. From NYT's City Room Blog:

The sustainable garden with the most exclusive real estate in Washington is no doubt the one at the White House. The sustainable farm with the most exclusive view in New York City is the one that opened on Governors Island last week.

Oh. Yeah. Governors Island is an island in New York Harbor not far from the Brooklyn waterfront. It was an army base for almost two hundred years and then a Coast Guard base for a few decades after that. It was decomissioned in 2001 and since that time various redevelopment plans have been proposed for it. But this is the best plan yet.

The organic three-acre farm, one of a handful of commercial organic farms within the five boroughs, is a collaboration between the corporation and a Brooklyn nonprofit group called Added Value, which teaches teenagers about sustainable and local food by training them to work on urban farms.

The Governors Island farm is expected to produce tens of thousands of dollars in organic produce annually, and as much as $25,000 this year — mostly though sales at a farm stand and to a soon-to-be-opened Water Taxi Beach on the northern part of the island. Among the offerings, the earliest of which is expected to be ripe in late July, are squash, tomatoes, sunflowers, eggplants and groundcherries (a relative of the gooseberry).

The farm will have close ties to New York Harbor School, which is scheduled to move from Bushwick, Brooklyn, to the island in 2010. The farm will provide produce, and students can volunteer and do science work there.

This is just all good. The more urban gardening the better and what better way to promote it than through such a high-profile project as this -- and the money-making part isn't bad either. Again, that school/farm connection is crucial since putting kids into gardens (i.e. improving education surrounding food and farming) is fundamental to food system reform. Score several for NYC.

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California's East Bay -- the collection of towns, cities, and suburbs across the Bay Bridge from San Francisco -- has a lot to boast about. There's the perpetually great weather, enlightened inhabitants, and a halfway decent, if in my opinion overpriced, public transit system in the form of BART. Yet despite BART's 43 stations spanning 95 miles, most folks in the area find they need a car, too.

Sherman LewisBut one man thinks his town, Hayward -- or at least a part of it -- can make the leap to automobile-free. "I want to live a lifestyle that's less dependent on cars," says Sherman Lewis, a retired poli-sci professor at Cal State East Bay and president of the Hayward Area Planning Association since 1978. But, he admits, he's chosen a relatively difficult way to achieve it, "by trying find 950 other families who want to live the same way."

Lewis has developed plans for Quarry Village, a 1,000-unit development about a mile from the Hayward BART station and a short skip from the Cal State campus and downtown Hayward. It includes townhouses, condos, walking paths, shuttle buses to the rail ... and no garages. It would fill 22 acres on a former rock quarry (hence the name) currently owned by Caltrans, the California DOT; the land is not yet for sale, but Lewis says the agency is supportive of his redevelopment vision. The residences will be officially affordable, at least by Hayward's definition: studios to six-bedrooms between $250,000 and $650,000. Lewis believes the larger units will appeal to telecommuters, who can use the extra bedrooms as offices.

Today a quarry, tomorrow a car-free revolution?QuarryVillage.comInside the development, residents would be able to walk to basic amenities -- a restaurant or two, a well-stocked grocery store. For other needs, they could take an on-site shuttle to BART, use the shared or rental car services that would be available, or, if they really want, rent one of the 100 or so parking spots along the perimeter of the neighborhood. Those spots would be auctioned off, starting at perhaps $125 a month, to help subsidize the shuttle service. No one need fear being judged for not giving up his or her car, Lewis assures. "They're going to be congratulated, " he says," because their money will go to pay for everyone else's bus."

The Quarry Village vision is inspired in part by the Vauban development in Freiburg, Germany, a 6,000-resident suburb where parking is limited to the perimeter and a space goes for $40,000. Some seventy percent of Vauban-ers don't own a car, and by all accounts they seem to have adjusted quite easily.

But that's Europe. Are Americans -- some of whom say their car represents them more than their friends of clothes -- ready for the car-free experience?

Well, maybe. Car-sharing, it was reported last week, is on the rise, with city policies and real estate developments encouraging the practice. (I find ZipCar, at $120 per weekend day here in New York, to be prohibitively expensive, but perhaps I'm spoiled by my bicycle and my $2 subway). Quebec-based CommunAuto asserts that every shared car knocks eight off the road -- that's about 1,800 fewer miles driven per person each year.

So the political climate is ripe for Quarry Village, and perhaps the mindset of many Americans, still stinging from our brief foray into $4 per gallon gas, has properly adjusted. "We have more than 100 people [ready] to sign up to buy these units when they become available," says Lewis.

But when will that be? At the end of May, the Hayward Planning Commission gave the thumbs up to new zoning, permitting higher density and less parking, and Lewis expects the city council to overwhelmingly approve SMU zoning -- sustainable mixed-use -- at the end of June, which Lewis says was created with Quarry Village in mind.

If you lived here, you'd be ooh-ing now.QuarryVillage.com"The city council is unanimously supportive, but all of us are concerned about getting investors and selling units fast enough," says Lewis. That's right, they're still lacking one key component: the money to actually create the neighborhood, despite plenty of interest and excitement. The tagline displayed prominently on the Quarry Village website sums up the current state of the project: "If you'll come, we can build it."

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New York City took a baby step recently towards a state role in distributing healthy food. It significantly expanded a program to bring fruit and vegetable "carts" to low-income neighborhoods that lack good food options -- so-called "food deserts." And if the early response as reported by the NYT is any indication, the program looks to be a rip-roaring success:

The crowds who appear to be turning out for the carts should give some pause to elitist opponents of such programs who often doubt that low-income residents will put down their sodas and fast food and pick up apples and carrots. Indeed, a member of the USDA's dietary guidlines panel (i.e. the people who brought you the food pyramid) recently speculated -- as paraphrased by US Food Policy -- "whether people would really eat much differently if healthy food were free." The NYT provides a hint of an answer:

If the avid buyers at Decatur Avenue were any indication, residents of produce-poor neighborhoods may welcome the green-umbrella invasion. “Research has demonstrated that the greater the access, the more the consumption,” said Elliott S. Marcus, an associate commissioner of the city’s health department.

And New York didn't just address access. While the program doesn't officiallly subsidize fruit and vegetable prices (for which I've advocated before), it does subsidize the overhead of the vendors. As a result, they can offer aggressively low prices. According the article, produce was half the price (or even less) of the same stuff at local markets.

In some ways, this is such an obvious program that it's painful to think that even this modest fleet of up to 1,000 produce carts could have failed based on opposition from brick and mortar vendors. While it did pass, it was a tough fight. As the NYT described the original city council proposal back in early 2008:

The measure had the backing of antihunger and child-advocacy groups, and when it was introduced it appeared to have strong support on the Council. But support began to waver amid heavy lobbying from the retail food industry, leading to a flurry of late changes and compromises.

And even now, not everyone is happy about the new competition.

“It may be good for health, but it’s bad for business,” said George Katehis, manager of the Splendid Deli Restaurant at 387 East Fordham Road. “A guy might buy a piece of fruit there instead of coming in here for a soda.”

Yes, George. I believe that's the point. I've written before about our mind-boggling tendency to privilege the needs of business-owners over the general public in public policy debates. But the fact is that current businesses simply aren't meeting the demand for fresh food in marginal neighborhoods -- and this is true across the country. So who cares what they think?

This one small program isn't going to solve the core problems of food deserts, or obesity for that matter. But it certainly suggests that government policies aimed at providing an adequate supply of healthy food at a reasonable price to low-income people have a good chance at succeeding. I can't think of any reason why this shouldn't be replicated in communities across the country. It's cheap, quick and effective. And while cities like Philadelphia have had success with public/private partnerships to bring supermarkets in to underserved areas (a model which NYC is planning to emulate), building or renovating stores takes time and still relies to some extent on the good intentions of supermarket chains. Why should low-income folks have to wait for all that? Let's roll some produce trucks, people!

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LaHood and Jackson look on as Obama signs a fuel-economy memo earlier this year.White HouseThere’s this crazy idea spreading through the Obama administration: not only can you work with your opponents to get things done, you can work with your allies. Like today, for instance, comes news that the EPA, Department of Transportation, and HUD have built upon an earlier DOT/HUD deal to create a Partnership for Sustainable Communities. The landmark collaboration identifies six “livability principles” for the agencies to keep in sight as they work on policy. Which means, said HUD Secretary Shaun Donovan, “For the first time, the federal government will speak with one voice on housing, environmental, and transportation policy.”

Imagine!

The six principles are:

1. Provide more transportation choices.
Develop safe, reliable and economical transportation choices to decrease household transportation costs, reduce our nations dependence on foreign oil, improve air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote public health.

2. Promote equitable, affordable housing.
Expand location- and energy-efficient housing choices for people of all ages, incomes, races and ethnicities to increase mobility and lower the combined cost of housing and transportation.

3. Enhance economic competitiveness.
Improve economic competitiveness through reliable and timely access to employment centers, educational opportunities, services and other basic needs by workers as well as expanded business access to markets.

4. Support existing communities.
Target federal funding toward existing communities through such strategies as transit-oriented, mixed-use development and land recycling to increase community revitalization, improve the efficiency of public works investments, and safeguard rural landscapes.

5. Coordinate policies and leverage investment.
Align federal policies and funding to remove barriers to collaboration, leverage funding and increase the accountability and effectiveness of all levels of government to plan for future growth, including making smart energy choices such as locally generated renewable energy.

6. Value communities and neighborhoods.
Enhance the unique characteristics of all communities by investing in healthy, safe and walkable neighborhoods rural, urban or suburban.

You see number one there? It could lead to more surprisingly good transit systems. And number four? That one’s about stopping sprawl in its tracks. Number six will make us healthier people—not only fighting climate change and obesity (also known as globesity), but making our towns and cities better places to be.

It’s so dreamy it’s almost ridiculous. Now if they can actually make headway, that’ll be the real miracle.

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Clearer skies ahead for Holyoke?Leslie Adams via flickrTo say that Holyoke, Mass., has seen better days would put you squarely in the running for Understatement of the Year. One of the poorest cities in the state, it is the sort of post-Industrial town that is scattered across New England: crumbling smokestacks, shuttered mills, “modern” housing thrown together in the shadow of manufacturers past. But Holyoke, which lies 10 miles outside  Springfield in the western part of the state, hit harder times than most. Compared to state and national averages, everything about Holyoke is high: unemployment, homelessness, poverty, crime. According to The Boston Globe, the median family income is $38,819, the national average $60,374; more than a quarter of families live below the poverty line.

Bleak, is what it is. Enter “Holyoke” into a Google News search and you get an even clearer picture: Holyoke suspect indicted for porn; Holyoke man pleads not guilty to beating woman with hammer; Holyoke police bust wanted man with stolen handgun near nightclub. And that’s just the first page.

But occasionally a glimmer of hope comes along—and the latest glimmer is the story at the top of that page. Four heavy-hitters in education and computing—the University of Massachusetts, MIT, EMC, and Cisco—have agreed to study the idea of building a $100 million energy-efficient data center in the city. The facility would take advantage of Holyoke’s hydroelectric-happy location near the Connecticut River, as well as its proximity to high-speed data lines along nearby interstates.

The idea of siting “green” data centers near hydro is not new, says GreenBiz—Google built a massive one in The Dalles in Oregon. But siting it in an urban area, and an urban area where people have been hungry for jobs so long they’ve forgotten what it feels like to be full, that’s new. It’s no doubt a cheap option for the collaboration—but it’s also a shrewd PR maneuver. What’s more sustainable than a data center that’s not only energy-efficient but requires no commute of its workers, and that helps attract new companies and new life to an urban area?

It should be noted that this project will not necessarily happen—again, the news today is about a study, not a groundbreaking. But it’s got people excited nonetheless. A Cisco spokesman said the company is intrigued by the idea of creating “a district that could attract high tech by a combination of green and cost-competitive energy,” reports the Globe. Gov. Deval Patrick hopes the collaboration will “lift up” the city and the region. “Holyoke poised for a new identity,” trumpeted the local paper. And as for Mayor Michael Sullivan? He’s already imagining the possibility of thousands of new jobs. “It’s going to be huge,” he said. “It’s the biggest news for Holyoke for the last 50 years.”

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When it comes to public transit in the U.S., there are certain predictable all-stars: the Metro in Washington, D.C., is convenient, efficient, and clean. The anthropomorphically nicknamed El and BART in Chicago and San Francisco are legendary. And everyone knows it’s easier to navigate New York City without a car than with one.

But what about the rest of the country? As cities big and small rethink how their residents get around, new systems are taking shape—and as gas prices and paychecks fluctuate, riders are responding in droves. While the current economic crunch is forcing many cities to hike fares and cut back on service, innovations continue, and the tracks are laid for a bright future.

Here are a few surprising places where public transit is gaining speed—steer yourself to the comments section below to leave your own nominations.

By the time I get to Phoenix, you’ll be riding.Jim JeffersPhoenix, Ariz. Pop. 1.5 million

The desert-gobbling Arizona capital opened its first light-rail line in January with much fanfare and a few days of free rides. The 20-mile line is a modest start, but it beat early expectations, proving that even a poster child for sprawl can change its ways. Future corridors would further connect the city, America’s fifth largest. One less-than-sunny idea: The county sheriff’s “Con Rail” plan to transport inmates on city rails. And drivers are still getting used to those big moving objects: vehicles have collided with trains 22 times this year, with motorists, not Metro, taking the blame.

Rapid transit: the final frontier.GRTCRichmond, Va. Pop. 202,002
The Capital of the South is served by a century-old non-profit that runs bike-rack-equipped buses, vans, and a carpooling and ride-matching service. Honored last year by the American Public Transportation Association for its deep commitment to the community, the Greater Richmond Transit Company has taken an active role in educating residents about the joys of carless living, with initiatives including a Lunch Time Express shuttle that makes downtown stops and even a transit TV show. A plan known as Mission 2015 envisions rapid transit and a downtown transfer center—big plans for a system dubbed by CEO John Lewis as “the little engine that could.”

Blizzard? What’s a little blizzard?!Yokota FritzDenver, Colo. Pop. 588,349
Denver’s mile-high sprawl is a lot easier to navigate thanks to one of the leading transit systems in the West. An established network of light rail and buses connects the city’s grid, all centered at the downtown Union Station. The voter-approved FasTracks plan will extend rail and bus lines into the suburbs, reaching into eight counties. And the Rocky Mountain Rail Authority hopes to run high-speed trains (up to 300 mph) along the oft-choked I-25 and I-70 corridors that traverse the state (though Colorado was among the states that got no love in President Obama’s national high-speed rail plan).

A MAX bus bound for glory.busride.comSalt Lake City, Utah. Pop. 180,651
What would you do if you expected millions of visitors to descend on your city for a couple of weeks? In Salt Lake City’s case, the answer was obvious: make it easier for them to get around. In advance of the 2002 Olympics, the city undertook several upgrades, including building a light rail system known as TRAX. The Utah Transportation Authority also runs a comprehensive bus system—which offers winter service to nearby ski areas—and a new commuter rail called FrontRunner. In fact, the city aims to build seventy miles of rail in seven years; officials are also studying the possibility of adding a downtown streetcar and a bicycle transit center. UTA actually decreased fares this year by dropping a fuel surcharge, but now budget cuts are being leveled at paratransit services, and disabled riders are none too pleased.

Exploring the Charlotte light rail.Charlotte ObserverCharlotte, N.C. Pop. 671,588
Charlotte’s light-rail line is certainly more of an up-and-comer than a well-rounded network, with its first 10-mile route opening in 2007. But what a story it’s been: Republican Mayor Pat McCrory put his career on the line for mass transit, asking this auto-loving Southern city (future home of the NASCAR Hall of Fame) to pony up nearly $500 million for the LYNX line. Sure as shootin’, voters responded. The rail line blew through 2020 ridership projects last summer, sparking new development downtown. Ridership has dropped along with the economy and gas prices since then, forcing service cuts. Still, other Southern cities have sent delegates to Charlotte to learn from this regional transit pioneer.

Fight the power ... of smog.Fred Camino via flickrLos Angeles, Calif. Pop. 3.8 million
The city known for smog, sprawl, and freeways has been working for two decades to reinvent itself as a transit-friendly place, spending $11 billion on a comprehensive rail network and creating a Metro Rapid bus line that uses low floors, traffic signal priority, and limited stops to minimize travel times. The work is paying off: despite its bad rap for public transit, L.A.‘s ridership ranks among the top in the nation. “We want to rethink what the city looks like,” Mayor Anthony Villaraigosa (D) has said, “to focus on a new urbanism that makes transit-oriented development and mixed-use development the future of L.A.”

Lolly the Trolley, the ride that started it all.Crawfishpie via flickrCleveland, Ohio. Pop. 438,042
Despite financial hardships earlier this decade, the Greater Cleveland Regional Transportation Authority saw several years of rail and bus ridership growth, added “free with a smile” downtown trolleys, and was hailed as one of the nation’s best transit systems by the American Public Transportation Association in 2007. In 2008, it added a route traveled by hybrid buses. Bike racks on buses and an airport connector make it theoretically possible to get around car-free. All of which rocks! But during the last year, route cuts and fare hikes have left some customers feeling stranded.

Riders crowd the platform at a MetroLink grand opening in 2006.Steve Patterson/Urban Review STLSt. Louis, Mo. Pop. 354,361
The Gateway City is working to reinvent itself, and its MetroLink light-rail system has played a crucial part. Ridership exceeded predictions, and advocates say the system has helped attract new shops, offices, residences, and hotels in both the Missouri and Illinois sections of the greater metro area. But after a November sales-tax referendum failed to get countywide support, the system had to raise fares and make major cuts in service. Despite the bumpy ride, experts say St. Louis is a great example of the positive impact that transit can have on development patterns.

For iRiders, a glut of tourist attractions await.Orlando, Fla. Pop. 227,907
In a city perennially clogged with tourists, downtown traffic was a downer. So Orlando officials created a free bus rapid transit system known as LYMMO in the late 1990s. Today, they credit the system with inspiring the development of several nearby office and residential buildings and improving walkability. The city is now looking at expanding beyond its current corridors, which total about twelve miles, and replacing its “clean-diesel” buses with hybrids. In a classically American catch, the bus remains free to riders because it is subsidized by income from—wait for it—parking garages.

Grand Rapids Station, the nation’s first LEED-certified public transit facility.Rapid Growth MediaGrand Rapids, Mich. Pop. 193,627
The transit system in Grand Rapids, known fondly as The Rapid, is like an eco-catchprase come to life. Green building? Check, in the form of a LEED-certified central terminal. Green jobs? Yep, expansion is expected to create 1,200 of them in the short-term, with about 400 being permanent. Transit-oriented development? You betcha: That LEED terminal has helped inspire $74 million of development in a three-block radius. Plus the system boasts super-friendly Midwest benefits like a shuttle in the ‘burbs that takes riders to the nearest bus stop. OK, OK—so maybe walkability is the one eco-catchphrase that hasn’t caught on yet.

This list was created by Jonathan Hiskes and Katharine Wroth. Thanks are due to the American Public Transportation Association, Environmental Defense, Planetizen, and Reconnecting America for their suggestions, information, and advice.

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The poor shopping mall. That once impenetrable fortress now seems as susceptible to the ailing economy as the rest of us. Vacancies are at an all-time high. Dead and dying malls continue to plague the landscape. And, perhaps worst of all, the mall has transformed from an icon of American life -- see Fast Times at Ridgemont High -- to a scourge, a symbol of the poor judgment of developers and the government policies that supported them. The mall, at this point, is not only unsustainable, it's downright unfashionable, and not just for urban planning aficionados; regular old mall-loving Americans are abandoning it, too.

Luckily, mallternatives are popping up across the land, demonstrating new futures for these old fixtures. Some dinosaur shopping centers are being de-malled, a polite term for razing and rebuilding. Some, like Bridgewater Commons in central New Jersey, are cutting hours to save dough. Others are lowering rents to allow locally owned businesses to set up shop inside, dispensing with the chain-store-only exclusivity that once characterized them.

And in at least one case, a mall is in the process of morphing into a new being: a city.

Tysons Corner developers are shopping a vision for the future.Fairfax County

Tysons Corner Center, the largest shopping mall in metropolitan Washington, D.C., is doing just fine, thank you, says John Genovese, executive vice president of Macerich, the mall's developer. But for the past six years, its creators have been dreaming of redeveloping it. "Tysons was very successful back in 2003 when we started this process, but we saw this opportunity to enhance it," he says.

Tysons opened in 1968 as a traditional super-regional mall, drawing people from all over the area on the shiny new Beltway to big businesses like Woolworth and Hecht's. In its current incarnation, it's a 2.2 million-square-foot enclosed mall with five fancy anchor stores -- Nordstrom, Bloomingdale's, Lord & Taylor, Macy's, L. L. Bean -- as well as 300-plus other stores and restaurants and a 16-plex movie theater. It's so popular that it's a major cause of the notorious traffic surrounding the city that houses it, also called Tysons Corner (that, and the fact that there's almost no way in or out of the city except by car).

That traffic is what prompted Fairfax County -- which runs the city of Tysons Corner, since the latter is unincorporated with no centralized government of its own -- to begin planning for the 23-mile extension of D.C.'s Orange Line that would add four Metrorail stations to this sprawling edge city. Thanks to a change in the area's comprehensive plan, allowing density to almost triple, Tysons Corner Center could grow, up and out and differently.

In the next decade or so, the mall will increase to 3.5 million square feet. It will include a 300-room, 266,000-square-foot hotel, 200,000 square feet of retail, and 1.4 million square feet of offices. Most importantly, it will include 1.6 million square feet of residences, surrounded by green spaces, walking paths and recreational facilities like an ice rink, sculpture plaza, gardens and performance spaces. It will be a city unto itself, with a transit stop within walking distance to ferry people to and from the development.

"You're [creating] almost a 24-hour nature to the property," says Genovese, as opposed to a mall that deadens its lights and releases its patrons at 9 p.m. The 21st century mall is the opposite of an enclosed, super-regional bubble -- a local, centralized creation with not just high-end chain stores but the little retailers that support residential life, like dry cleaners and grocers and shoe repair shops. The name of the project: Tysons Future.

Some of its parking lots will be transformed into streets, a central part of the new plan for the entire Tysons area. Currently, there are only a few busy roads in and out of the city, with private streets ending abruptly or spilling out into parking lots -- the county wants to create a street grid throughout the city. While Macerich wants Tysons Corner Center to be as walkable, bikeable, and urban as possible, Genovese is realistic about the limits of transforming mall into city. When it comes down to it, there are limits to the plan. After all, as he points out, "We're not going to run a street through Nordstrom's."

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Fortunately for your humble correspondent, Van Jones was so busy when the editors of the new book, Mandate for Change: Policies and leadership for 2009 and beyond, were looking for an author for their chapter about green jobs, that they turned to me instead.  This is part one of three posts that will serialize my chapter.  There are over 40 great contributors besides me, your humble ... well, anyway, buy the book!

We face several simultaneous crises—global warming, high oil prices, a brittle agricultural system and a major economic slowdown—all of which can be addressed at the same time by embarking on a program of creating millions of high-quality green collar jobs.

A green-collar jobs program can help create an environmentally and economically sustainable society that: drastically reduces its greenhouse gas emissions; encourages energy independence from oil; eliminates the worry of heating and cooling one’s home; and increases food security, all while providing millions of high-quality, well-paying, long-term jobs, thus bringing millions of people into a stable middle class.

The following eight initiatives could result in transportation, energy, building construction, agricultural and manufacturing sectors that would have very low carbon emissions, would be economically and ecologically sustainable for the foreseeable future, and whose workers and employees would all be green-collar.

First, the infrastructure of the United States is crumbling, which means that there is plenty of work to do even without worries about global warming, oil and food. We should build a sustainable infrastructure, not just maintain the one that we have.

Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel introduced a bill in 2007, the National Infrastructure Bank Act [PDF], which is a good starting point for a discussion about how to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Infrastructure funding has been inadequate for decades, and we need an institution that can provide long-term stability of funding.

However, the federal government should go even further and create a bank that also develops human capital. The bank could be called an Infrastructure Capital Development Bank, one that would, in addition to providing funding for infrastructure construction, run a network of Training Institutes that would train the millions of people we need in order to build a sustainable economy. Green-collar jobs need green-collar job classes.

In addition, the Bank could help businesses start up or expand their green-collar activities, with financial help and/or by providing technical assistance. If desired, the Bank could help these firms become employee-owned-and-operated, thus increasing efficiency and insuring that jobs stay in the United States.

Second, our transportation industries are in trouble because the era of cheap oil is over, and at the same time we need to drastically cut our carbon emissions. For inter-city travel, our infrastructure has been built around airplanes, cars and trucks. In much of the world, however, trains of various kinds fulfill the roles of intercity passenger and freight transportation. In the United States, the incoming Administration has a chance to jump-start the construction of a national network of electrified high-speed passenger and freight trains.

At least initially, foreign companies will be the only ones with the expertise to produce high-speed trains. If domestic content legislation was passed, these companies and the hundreds of subcontractors that would be needed for such systems could employ a whole new generation of high-skill blue-collar, or blue-green-collar workers.

High-speed rail is the cutting edge of transportation technology, having been developed even more recently than air travel, much less the 100-year-plus old technology of the internal combustion engine. There are already several federally recognized high-speed rail networks “in waiting,” around Chicago, Ohio, Texas, Florida and California, in addition to the one between Boston and Washington, D.C., which could certainly be expanded.

A national system of high-speed rail could do in the twenty-first century what the Interstate Highway System did for the United States after World War II: create the infrastructure for a period of high-speed economic growth. In addition, if the rail system was powered by solar and wind-generated electricity, the United States would have the first carbon-free inter-city transportation system in the world.

Third, as oil prices increase, so does the demand for public transportation. Subways and light rail can be run on renewable electricity, and commuter rail systems can be expanded and electrified. In addition, many cities are contemplating bus rapid transit, pioneered in Curitaba, Colombia, which allow buses to move much faster and more comfortably.

Currently, as in the case of high-speed rail, there are no domestic primary contractors for subway construction, but in the case of New York State, domestic content laws have led to the establishment of many subway construction factories, and the same could be mandated across the country. Again, these are blue-green-collar jobs, jobs in industry that will help us move toward a zero carbon emission economy, while making us energy independent and more secure.

Another advantage to public transit is that it will encourage the development of dense, “mixed-use” city and town areas, that is, areas that are composed of apartment buildings, stores, offices and other kinds of buildings. Christopher Leinberger of the Brookings Institution calls for the construction of “walkable urbanism” that is, “the development approach that creates pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use and mixed-income places.” When there are fixed subway or light rail stops, then developers, prospective residents and store owners can be confident that there will be fast and easy transportation to any residence or store.

The construction of dense, mixed use buildings near transit stops will bring about a construction boom for decades to come. Building construction or reconstruction, not normally considered “green,” should be so categorized if new construction takes place near transit stops. There are two ways to make buildings “green”—make them energy efficient, and place them in dense areas next to transit stops.

Thus, public transit decreases carbon emissions, helps us achieve energy independence, and lays the groundwork for walkable communities. In addition, staffing, maintaining and building public transit will provide millions of high-quality jobs all across the country. Since the transit and construction jobs will be in urban areas, low-income neighborhoods can be targeted for recruitment into training and apprenticeship programs.

    While government can directly create networks of rail and transit, it can also indirectly encourage the replacement of gasoline-only automobiles and trucks with plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. The first step in this process would be to mandate that all federal cars and trucks be plug-ins or all-electric by 2020. Eventually, if the entire transportation sector can run on renewable electricity, then all jobs in the transportation sector will be green-collar.

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Trailer parks get a bad rap, especially in the post-Katrina days when we've come to see them as North American refugee camps slowly poisoning their displaced inhabitants with formaldehyde fumes. But the trailer park, done right, actually holds great potential as a development model.

MiniHome: a big idea.

Sustain

Even in its current form, with communities of not-particularly-mobile homes plopped atop concrete blocks, the trailer park is a kind of low-rent template, a version of new urbanism without the bells, whistles, and marketing budgets. In Canada particularly, trailer parks are vacation spots, more campground than affordable housing, with density, communal green spaces, swimmable and fishable bodies of water, and dwellings a fraction of the size of the current average, which falls in the 2,500-square-foot range.

"If you look at all the ground rules and best practices guidelines for perfect ecotopia villages, you're going to see all the things you find in a [Canadian] trailer park," says Andy Thompson, designer of the Sustain MiniHome, an extremely green mobile home manufactured in Toronto.

Problem is, those parks are filled with, you know, trailers. The formaldehyde kind.

Well, Thompson has a solution to that particular problem.

He's partnering with trailer park owners in Canada to transform older parks into those perfect ecotopia villages, with MiniHomes replacing the formaldehyde models. Just call them MiniHome Parks. They will be second-home spots at first, but someday, if all goes according to Thompson's plans, they'll be a new vision of redevelopment.

MiniHomes -- solar-powered, recycled water-using, super-insulated dwellings made of renewable materials -- will begin peppering trailer parks around Canada later this year, with an eye toward realizing the master makeover plan that Thompson and partners have cooked up.

The master plan includes much more than replacing the old trailers with new. The goal is to return the parks to as close to their pre-development incarnations as possible, through habitat restoration, de-paving of surfaces to improve groundwater quality, and rainwater collection. Thompson also envisions organic gardening; community solar power, wind turbines, and electric vehicle fleets; even organic grocery delivery and pet waste compost collection areas (there's a long list of everything the MiniHome park aims to do here).

They hope to have 10 to 20 units per acre, so there is density yet privacy. People will buy their own units -- a 12-by-34-foot model starts at $139,900 -- and pay an annual fee of $1,500 to $5,000 for upkeep of the park. Might seem a little pricey for 400 square feet -- the average price of a single-wide in the U.S. in 2007 was $37,200 -- but owners have the option of placing their units into a rental pool when they're not basking in the green glow, and Thompson points out that a vacation cabin by a body of water is often much more expensive, without the sleek design and environmental benefits.

Of course, it takes time to go from the current model of trailer park to the environmental vacationer version. Most parks will add MiniHomes, rather than displace folks who already have traditional trailers there, and the MiniHome Park works particularly well if you can get your hands on a vacant park. Thompson estimates that the reinvention can take between one and five years, depending on how populated the existing park is. Rather than what he calls the "brutal development approach" -- kicking everyone out so the parks can be re-landscaped and old trailers replaced with the new -- he chooses the slow growth approach, transforming inhabited trailer parks unit by unit, block by block.

Which is perfect, because Thompson hopes these MiniParks will become year-round destinations instead of three-season retreats, and that they will both transform our images of the trailer park and municipalities' resistance to them. They may be filled with mobile homes, but Thompson hopes MiniHome Parks will be here to stay. This is not about reinventing the trailer park, he says: "We're looking at this as the future of the suburb."

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