• It was the Boomers, in the cul-de-sac, with a stack of zoning laws

    It doesn't take much digging to find that generational blame for sprawl doesn’t add up and gets us no closer to a solution—for that, we need a more targeted approach.
    I read in The Atlantic’s current issue that Baby Boomers are to blame for a wide range of societal ills, notably restrictive zoning and parking regulations. Lyman Stone’s indictment, in an article bluntly titled “ Baby Boomers Ruined Everything ,” rests on “increasing frequency with which various...Read more
  • Good news, the era of sprawl is over

    That problem we’ve been having with inefficient, spread-out, unsustainable, automobile-dependent development patterns is solved at last.
    On Friday, the National Association of Sprawl Tasks and Initiatives (NASTI) met to discuss how to get closer parking spots to their meetings, only to discover that parking lots fronting power centers, commercial strip corridors, and the group's offices nationwide had magically disappeared—along...Read more
  • The urban dimensions of climate change: Lessons for a New Urbanism

    Reining in sprawl is still the most important first step in transitioning to a more benign kind of settlement, and more responsible planning. Reduction of greenhouse gas emissions is only one of many benefits—but it is a significant one.
    There is an intriguing paradox within the inventories of greenhouse gas emissions per capita—the emissions that each of us generates through our daily activities of moving, interacting, and consuming resources. Those who live in an average settlement in the United States consume and emit on average...Read more
  • A small ‘c’ conservative case for urbanism

    Brainerd, Minnesota, Lafayette, Louisiana, and place called Jimmy's Pizza highlight the advantages of incremental design and development—and show why car-oriented development turns out to be a very poor investment.
    Note: This article is a summary of talk given by Chuck Marohn of Strong Towns at an event that CNU co-sponsored a while back with The American Conservative . View the whole talk here. No society in history has ever done what we have done: taken thousands of years of history and knowledge about how...Read more