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RESULTS		Results 26 – 50 of 52
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Headline	Author	Published	Section
You're Getting Warmer, Warmer ... Sprawling homes susceptible to flames in California		24 Oct 2007	News
Posted at 3:27 PM on 24 Oct 2007 The impact of the still-raging California fires on humans and their homes is tragic and lamentable -- but far from unexpected, thanks to homeowners' tendency to sprawl out and nestle right up to the fire line. Some two-thirds of new building in southern California in the past decade was on tinder-dry, fire-susceptible land, says historian Mike Davis. "You might as well be ...
Topics: California, climate, climate change impacts, news, placemaking, severe weather, sprawl (all these topics)

This urban life Even the greenest suburbs can't touch low urban emission rates	Ryan Avent	21 Oct 2007	Gristmill
Last Sunday, the Washington Post published a piece by Joel Kotkin and Ali Modarres which sought to debunk the ideas that dense urban areas are greener than their suburban counterparts and that encouraging dense growth might play a significant role in reducing America's carbon output. The piece was wrong or misleading on practically every point, to the extent that any complete response would take up far more time and space than I have available. Some of the authors' most e ...
Topics: climate, greenhouse-gas emissions, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Dingell's absurd poison-pill climate plan John Dingell's carbon-tax bill is designed to be unpopular	Joseph Romm	02 Oct 2007	Gristmill
The carbon plan of Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) is considerably lamer -- and more transparently a poison pill -- than early reports suggested. So I strongly disagree with Chris Dodd, Friends of the Earth, and Gristmill's Charles Komanoff, who all applaud the bill. Here's why. First, as Dingell himself has said, he wanted to design a bill with maximum pain to prove to everyone how unpalatable greenhouse gas mitigation is (see below). Why else include a pointless $0.50 ...
Topics: climate, greenhouse-gas emissions, John Dingell, legislation, politics, sprawl (all these topics)

Sprawl and global warming Land-use and development decisions are crucial in the fight against climate change, says new report	David Roberts	22 Sep 2007	Gristmill
Living closer to where you work will do more to fight climate change than buying a Prius and living in the 'burbs. We'll never beat climate change until we change the way we structure our communities. That is the conclusion of a new report out from the Urban Land Institute: The report, "Growing Cooler: Evidence on Urban Development and Climate Change," analyzed scores of academic studies and concluded that compact development -- mixing housing and busin ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Walk It Off Land-use decisions a key factor in emissions reduction, says analysis		21 Sep 2007	News
Posted at 12:36 PM on 21 Sep 2007 How to reduce U.S. greenhouse-gas emissions? Building compact, mixed-use neighborhoods would be just as effective as much-touted policies like boosting fuel economy, cleaning up power plants, and building green, says a new analysis from the Urban Land Institute. The U.S. population is expected to grow 23 percent by 2030; under the sprawl-encouraging status quo, driving is expected ...
Topics: climate, climate change mitigation, greenhouse-gas emissions, news, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Condos do not have agency Does anyone choose to live in a condo?	Eric de Place	21 Sep 2007	Gristmill
One of the curiosities of language is that our usage can sometimes inadvertently reveal our underlying beliefs. Consider how condos are often described as if they are conscious actors who perform actions, such as 'packing people together.' One example comes from the Seattle P-I: 'Now, condominiums are building upward, packing people into to what used to be inexpensive property.' According to this way of writing, it's the condos, not the owners, that have what we philo ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Tippecanoe and Tainted Too Indiana county has three times more parking spaces than residents		19 Sep 2007	News
Posted at 3:23 PM on 19 Sep 2007 Indiana's Tippecanoe County is home to 155,000 residents whom apparently are swamped with visitors, as the county has 355,000 public parking spaces. We'll just float this by them: Parking lots can contribute to water pollution, erosion, the urban heat island effect, and local flooding. Which could be extra dangerous for those in a Tippecanoe -- if you get our drift. They ...
Topics: Indiana, news, placemaking, sprawl, water pollution (all these topics)

Brown Knows San Bernardino County, Calif., will account for greenhouse-gas emissions		23 Aug 2007	Daily Grist
Brown Knows San Bernardino County, Calif., will account for greenhouse-gas emissions One of the largest, fastest-growing, most sprawl-happy counties in the U.S. will have to measure its greenhouse-gas emissions and set targets for reducing them by 2010, according to a legal settlement announced Tuesday. California's San Bernardino County had been sued by State Attorney General Jerry Brown after county officials updat ...
Topics: California, climate, politics, sprawl (all these topics)

Piquing interest How does the Home Interest Mortgage Deduction affect sprawl?	Clark Williams-Derry	31 Jul 2007	Gristmill
Now that the housing market is tanking, is it a good time to talk about the absurdity of the Home Interest Mortgage Deduction? I mean, it's truly crummy social policy. The biggest benefits go to the people in the highest tax brackets, own expensive homes, and earn enough income that they can itemize their deductions. So in essence, the HIMD is a ginormous housing subsidy for the well-off -- and one that dwarfs all of the housing subsidies to lower-income ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Alternatives to auto-mobility Necessary	David Roberts	23 Jul 2007	Gristmill
This op-ed from Rick Cole, city manager of Ventura, Calif., will be music to the ears of all you Gristians: The feel-good stage of California's leadership on global warming is unsustainable. Kudos to the pop stars with their calls to switch lightbulbs and unplug cellphone chargers when not in use. But we can't pretend that we will actually reduce 2020 greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels without tackling our region's embedded patterns of auto dependence and subur ...
Topics: cars, climate, green building, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Alito Bit More Critter-Hating Supreme Court sides with developers on Endangered Species Act case		26 Jun 2007	Daily Grist
Alito Bit More Critter-Hating Supreme Court sides with developers on Endangered Species Act case Like a tormented parent with two kids in a spelling bee, environmentalists watched in horror this week as the U.S. Supreme Court judged the relative heft of two federal eco-laws. The case in question pitted green groups against the National Association of Home Builders. At issue was whether the U.S. EPA co ...
Topics: endangered species, litigation, news, sprawl, US EPA (all these topics)

Visualizing density Images of dense development	Eric de Place	02 Jun 2007	Gristmill
Just wanted to point out a great website, 'Visualizing Density,' a product of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy (LILP). I'm not feeling like my usual prolix self today, so I'll let them do the talking: Sprawl is bad. Density is good. Americans need to stop spreading out and live closer together. Well ... that's the theory, anyway. But, as anyone who has tried to build compact development recently will tell you, if there's one thing Americans hate more than sprawl ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

The 'Terminator' eyes Cali farmland Schwarzenegger to California farmers: Considuh this a divorce	Tom Philpott	27 May 2007	Gristmill
There's a fair amount of debate on Gristmill about how much green cred to give the Governator -- that A-list action hero of enlightened Republicanism. I don't follow California politics closely enough to venture an opinion. But I do know that promoting a policy that will result in yet more suburban sprawl and evict small- and mid-sized farmers from their land -- all in an effort to save chump change from the state budget -- hardly does Schwarzenegger credit. Over on ...
Topics: agriculture, Arnold Schwarzenegger, California, placemaking, sprawl (all these topics)

Banner day for B.C. Lots of good stuff north of the border	Clark Williams-Derry	25 May 2007	Gristmill
The Vancouver Sun has the scoop. First, the city of Vancouver, British Columbia, just released a draft "eco-density" plan that sounds, at least to my ears, like exactly the right way to deal with the city's expected population increase: curbing sprawl by concentrating new housing in compact, transit-friendly neighborhoods: Vancouver should put high-density housing next to its major parks and along every one of its major streets, suggests the first d ...
Topics: Canada, placemaking, public transportation, sprawl, urban planning, Vancouver (all these topics)

Madrid, May I? Spanish activists up in arms over unchecked urbanization		07 May 2007	Daily Grist
Madrid, May I? Spanish activists up in arms over unchecked urbanization This weekend, thousands of protesters took to the streets of Spain to voice their fury over ... rampant urbanization. Yes, it's true, residents of la piel de toro have had it with the bull. A building boom that started in the 1960s is overrunning rural areas and coastal cities, say observers, and corrupt politicians are only too eager ...
Topics: news, placemaking, Spain, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Urbanism and the environment Can we live with skyscraper farms?	John McGrath	23 Apr 2007	Gristmill
I find ideas like this stimulating, if only because it shows some creativity: skyscraper farms. Basically, the idea is to build multi-story enclosed greenhouses near the cities where most food is consumed, thus reducing the acreage required to grow the crops and the energy needed to transport them. Some of the work done by Columbia University suggests the 'vertical farm' could produce at least twice as much energy as it consumes from burning the biomass was ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

What's wrong with sprawl Ten things	David Roberts	02 Apr 2007	Gristmill
I doubt we have many sprawl-lovers in the audience, but just in case you need the comprehensive case against sprawl in one convenient location, check out 'Ten Things Wrong with Sprawl' by James M. McElfish, Jr., director of the Sustainable Use of Land Program at the Environmental Law Institute. Here are the ten things, in highly condensed form: Sprawl development contributes to a loss of support for public facilities and public amenities. Sprawl undermines ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Sprawl bribery is beating smart growth	David Roberts	24 Jul 2006	Gristmill
The following is a guest essay from Joel S. Hirschhorn, author of Sprawl Kills: How Blandburbs Steal Your Time, Health and Money. He can be reached through sprawlkills.com. ----- When the small town of Warrenton in sprawl-rich northern Virginia received an offer of $22 million in cash from Centex Homes, one of the nation's largest developers and home builders, one reaction of concerned parties was, OK, sounds like an environmentally acceptable plan for near ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Street Smarts An interview with smart-growth expert and author Anthony Flint	David Roberts	07 Jul 2006	Main Dish
Few debates in the U.S. are more emotionally charged than the one over sprawl -- the exodus, since World War II, of America's middle class from cities to far-flung residential areas. Environmentalists, small farmers, and social-justice activists deplore sprawl for its unhealthy effects on land and communities. Suburbanites bristle at the attacks on their personal choices -- the desire for sa ...
Topics: interview, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

Slum Like It Not In the world's slums, the worst of poverty and environmental degradation collide	Mike Davis	29 Mar 2006	Main Dish
This article was originally published in OrionOnline. Precarious dwellings in North Sulawasi, Indonesia. Photos: iStockphoto. A villa miseria outside Buenos Aires, Argentina, may have the worst feng shui in the world: it is built in a flood zone over a former lake, a toxic dump, and a cemetery. Then there's the barrio perched precariously on stilts over the excrement-clogge ...
Topics: environmental justice, placemaking, politics, population, Poverty and the Environment, sprawl, toxics, waste (all these topics)

ATLien Invasion Will an Atlanta parks and redevelopment project benefit low-income residents?	Na'Taki Osborne	28 Mar 2006	Soapbox
Atlanta, Ga.: the famous "Hot-lanta" of Southern heat and hospitality, home of "down-home" fried chicken and a growing black middle class, cradle of the largest historically black college community in the world, hotbed of the civil-rights movement, and ... the sprawl capital of the South. As Atlanta gets greener, who will benefit? Photo: iStockphoto. As ...
Topics: environmental justice, Georgia, green space, placemaking, politics, Poverty and the Environment, sprawl (all these topics)

Walking the Line What Mexican activists can teach the U.S. about poverty and the planet	Oliver Bernstein	07 Mar 2006	Soapbox
As the border organizer for Sierra Club's Environmental Justice program, I bounce back and forth across the U.S.-Mexico border supporting grassroots environmental activists. More than the food, language, or currency, the biggest difference from one side to the other is what issues are considered "environmental." Perhaps nowhere else on earth is there such a long borde ...
Topics: environmental justice, health, Mexico, politics, population, Poverty and the Environment, Sierra Club, sprawl, United States, waste, water conflicts (all these topics)

Suburbia, oil, and preferences Why can't we change our oil-sucking land-use preferences?	David Roberts	06 Jun 2005	Gristmill
The other day I expressed disappointment at Kevin Drum's fifth peak oil post -- the one where he lays out his recommendations for oil policy. In my inimitably oblique and unfocused way, I was simply trying to say that I wish he'd been more imaginative. If nothing else, peak oil is going to be a major inflection point in our collective history. It's a sharp turn in the road, and we can't see clearly around the bend. The stakes are huge, and call for a commensurate ...
Topics: energy, oil, placemaking, sprawl, urban planning (all these topics)

So whatcha whatcha whatcha want?	David Roberts	20 Oct 2004	Gristmill
In the U.S., as with many other places, the industrial era saw a massive exodus from rural areas into cities. �The 'information era' (or whatever buzzword you like) has seen a massive exodus from cities to suburbs and exurbs, with long commutes to work, sprawling colonies of large homes, strip malls, and cars, cars, cars. �Now, the mere fact of such a large exodus would seem to indicate that Americans prefer such a lifestyle (despite the fact that it may be killing the ...
Topics: placemaking, sprawl (all these topics)

40 Acres and a Tax Break		16 May 2003	Daily Grist
40 Acres and a Tax Break California environmentalists and farmers rejoiced yesterday when Gov. Gray Davis (D) restored $40 million in funding for farmland and open-space protection under the Williamson Act. Together, farmers and enviros had lobbied heavily against the proposed elimination of the act, under which the state pays back counties for property taxes lost when landowners are ...
Topics: business, California, food and agriculture, news, placemaking, sprawl (all these topics)

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