By Tracy Taylor, Triple Pundit

Not only are smart growth communities good for your quality of life, they are good for your pocketbook as well.  According to Market Acceptance of Smart Growth, a recent report by the EPA, smart growth communities not only see stable market prices over time, but they often see greater retail appreciation than the average suburban development.  Given all the grim news surrounding the housing market over the past years, this is a welcome bit of news to add to the already long list of benefits of smart growth.

Smart growth – what was once the buzzword of the future has already changed the way our neighborhoods look, the way our communities interact, and the way our residents feel about the place they call home.  Characterized by the centralized parks and open spaces, walkable lunch spots and coffee shops, and businesses within minutes of houses, smart growth communities encourage healthier lifestyles and a sense of community.  Less money is supposedly spent on gas, less gas equals less emissions, and less emissions equals cleaner air.  And of course, exercise increases as cars are kept parked in driveways and residents set off on foot or bike for their shorter commutes.

Full | Triple Pundit: EPA Smart Growth Developments Enjoy Stronger Resale Appreciation

From AOL | Drive Less, Live Longer

Let’s face it: Most motorists just drive too fast. Too many people are in too big a hurry to get where they’re going. Safety experts and law enforcement agencies are constantly admonishing the lead-footed to “Just Slow Down!” And to underscore that point, a recent study by a Canadian research team has determined that driving decreases life expectancy.

According to the study, every hour you spend behind the wheel in North America leads to a 20-minute loss of life expectancy due to the risks of a fatal car crash. Further, the study concluded that by slowing down just two miles per hour, the average driver would increase their life expectancy by three hours per year.

“When drivers speed to get to their destination faster, they actually lose more time because the savings from faster travel are offset by the increased prospect of a crash,” says Dr. Donald Redelmeier, the lead investigator in the study. Redelmeier is a professor of medicine at the University of Toronto and a staff physician at Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre, Canada’s largest trauma center.

“The study suggests that small changes can have large consequences…and would translate to approximately 3 million fewer property-damage crashes, one million fewer injurious crashes, and 9,000 fewer fatalities each year in the United States,” says Redelmeier, who believes that if North American drivers would slow down by two miles per hour, it could reduce crash-related property damage by about $10 million each day.

Keeping with the old truism that most crashes occur within 25 miles of your home, Redelmeier warns that the chances of being in a fatal car crash are just as high when you’re running errands around town as they are if you’re on a long trip, out on the freeway. “Even a short trip can put you into contact with 100 other drivers, some of whom may be speeding, some of whom may have poor driving skills, and any one of those could ruin your life, forever,” he says.

One sad statistic is that for every person who is killed in a car crash in North America, there are another 50 individuals who suffer crash-related injuries, with 20 of those injuries being permanently disabling, says Reidemeier.

The study was based on a combination of computerized traffic modeling, national statistics covering driving on public roadways, and the laws of physics. The computer models calculated results taking into account average distances and time drivers in the United States spend traveling daily, the number of annual crashes categorized as fatal, injuries and property damage, and the expected time losses due to accidents.

The study was supported by the Canada Research Chair in Medical Decision Sciences, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the National Institutes of Health Resuscitation Outcomes Consortium, and the Patient Safety Service of Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre.

“What inspired this study was what I saw at the hospital. I am always amazed that so many of my patients in the trauma center were injured in crashes that were caused by excessive speed,” says Redelmeier. “And I’m not talking about egregious speeding, like the psycho who is driving 150 miles an hour. I’m just talking about the drivers who are maybe a little over-confident, and are maybe driving a few miles an hour faster than they should be.

“And if you’re someone who frequently drives 80 miles an hour, slowing down to 65 or 70 would result in an even more significant increase in your life expectancy.

Leonard Evans, author of “Traffic Safety,” a popular textbook on the subject, says the results of Redelmeier’s study “are very much in accord” with his own findings. “Speed is the most important factor in traffic safety,” he stresses.

Evans, a retired General Motors research scientist, cites the “three simple laws,” as he calls them, that he spelled out in his book:

“Number one, the faster you drive, the more likely you are to crash,” says Evans. “Number two, the faster you were going, the more likely you are to be injured. And number three, if you’re injured, the faster you were traveling, the more likely you are to be killed.

Redelmeier also stresses that his findings bolster the argument for increasing government efforts to reduce speeding, including photo radar, traffic calming programs, and crackdowns on street racing. “Such programs can have huge gains even if partially effective and imperfectly run,” says Redelmeier.

Evans agrees that such government programs and practices need to be implemented and enforced. “There is a great deal of evidence that if you drive just two percent faster, your risk of being killed increases by 10 percent,” he says.

Redelmeier and Evans both believe that the government isn’t nearly pro-active enough in implementing such programs. “The United States lags way behind other countries in terms of programs like red light cameras and photo radar,” says Redelmeier. “The efforts to curb speeding are much more advanced in many other countries.”

Full | Drive Less, Live Longer

May is National Bike Month with special Bike to Work events occurring throughout the month in cities across the country.  It’s time to pump some air into your tires and get out there!  Biking to work is such an enjoyable way to commute.  You get fresh air, your heart gets pumping and you’re doing a good thing for the environment while you’re at it. 

The Today show and Self Magazine ran a special segment on biking to work last week.  According to the segment, 50% of American’s live within 5 miles of work.  And if you bike to work three times a week, the average person will lose 10 pounds in one year.  Now think of how much weight you could lose if you bike more than 5 miles three times per week. 

If you don’t have a bike, borrow one, rent one or buy one.  Bikes choices have expanded lately.  You don’t have to have an expensive road or mountain bike.  Try out a comfort bike, a beach cruiser, ones with greaseless chains (so you don’t get grease on your dress paints), and ones that fold to fit into your cubicle.  Your local bike shop will be happy to help you find the perfect bike for you.

Many cities throughout the country are planning group rides throughout the month.  Check out www.bikeleague.org for information about special events in your area.  It’s safe.  It’s good for you.  You’ll save gas money.  It’s let’s stressful.  And it’s good for the planet.  I hope to see you in the bike lanes!

The current economic crisis offers a chance for a paradigm shift. We should not waste this opportunity by returning to the status quo that existed before the downturn or even pining for that unsustainable state. Instead, we should embrace rethinking our economy, and in particular our land use, development and construction policies.

We are already seeing some economic changes relating to the downturn. Prior to the economic freefall over the last year, savings rates had dwindled to literally nothing. With the modest level of recovery, some are bemoaning the lackluster spending on American consumers. What we are seeing is actually a rebound of more healthy savings rates rather than a continued hunger for excessive material goods fueled by debt financing. Count me as one who sees this as a long term win even if it means a slower recovery.

The downturn has had disparate impacts that in some markets are directly tied to land use policy. In urban style Arlington County, Virginia, the recession has certainly slowed business growth and hurt specific businesses. Overall, however, property values have dropped only very modestly in the midst of a global downturn. The 2009 budget actually called for a 4.4% budget increase while 2010 recommended a very modest 1.3% decline. These budget estimates reflect a modest drop in property tax revenues associated with a modest property tax increase and moderate value decreases.

By comparison, Prince William and Loudoun Counties experienced spectacular numerical growth fueled by huge sprawling single family subdivisions which feed into clogged arterial highways. These regions have suffered precipitous drops in property values and high foreclosure rates. For example, in 2006, Prince William recorded a total of 249 foreclosures. In 2008, this number jumped to 6,549. These jurisdictions are now struggling to shift their focus and development approach.

Transit oriented dense development has demonstrated a more sustainable environmental footprint and economic framework in challenging times. This intersection of economic and environmental sustainability makes the discussions blooming at places like Aribra and Build2Sustain so exciting and timely. Sustainability requires both economic and environmental consideration and in the end, both are truly symbiotic.

On one level, I see these changes and events as looking forward to the future. On another very different level, I see them as harkening to the better part of our nation’s past. I was raised in large part by my grandparents, children of the depression. My grandfather served in both World War II and the Korean War. Their generation, rightfully called the Greatest Generation, worked, fought, scrimped, and challenged our nation to success. It was these qualities of talent and character, coupled with a wealth of natural resources and a structural backbone of democracy and freedom that constitute what I associate with the phrase “American Exceptionalism”.

Over the last few decades, I believe we have strayed far from the ideals of the Greatest Generation. Deficit financing of excessive consumer goods does not match that generation’s value system. Folks who trumpet the theory that American Exceptionalism means we are “the best” and therefore can swing our global weight around do not get it either. It is not that we ever were or thought we were better than anyone else, but rather that the Greatest Generation did what they had to do and got it done. In fact, this co-opting of the Greatest Generation’s spirit in political discourse runs counter to the very concepts of humility and service that ran at the core of the Greatest Generation.

I think about these themes quite a bit in my daily life, my legal practice, and talks amongst friends. I was so struck when my friend and twitter pal James Bedell recently commented on this very theme in a post The End of American Exceptionalism. If this concept is about permanent US world domination, that is not reality in my book: what goes up, must eventually come down. I grew up pondering the theory of cost of empire and the fall of the Roman Empire. I was part of the guinea pig test history classes for Paul Kennedy’s widely respected The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, a tremendous book that still rings true decades later.

In the end, I agree with James that the world hungers for, loves and purchases our “culture”, but I believe to my core that what is perceived as American culture is part of the problem and not the solution moving forward. American Exceptionalism started and maintained from a very different set of core values, and those core values propelled us in large part to our success. In the end, it is about a more modest set of assumptions and expectations, values based on service and leadership rather than consumption and domination. These values in turn fit directly into developing a more sustainable model of growth and the economy moving forward. These values are ours to embody and demonstrate or to ignore and discard, so in the end, the question of whether American Exceptionalism is alive is up to us.

Don’t own a car, but want to get out to one of the Bay Area’s hundreds of parks and trails? Or perhaps, you are trying to reduce your carbon footprint and wondering how to get to your favorite hike without using your car?

Transit and Trails is a new resource for outdoor enthusiasts who want to leave their cars behind and easily get information on how to take the bus (or ferry) to reach Bay Area hiking trails and campgrounds.

A project of the Bay Area Open Space Council (BAOSC), the new interactive website identifies hundreds of trailheads and 150 campgrounds to explore across the Bay Area’s 1.2 million acres of preserved lands. Just enter your starting location, and roughly how far you want to venture, and the site suggests possible hikes and featured trips. Once you decide where you want to go, it connects with the Metropolitan Transportation Commission’s 511 Transit Trip Planner to provide a detailed trip itinerary, complete with a map, transit times, fares and walking directions to and from the transit stop.

BAOSC a collaborative of more than 55 member organizations actively involved in permanently protecting and stewarding important parks, trails and agricultural lands in the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area. They are committed to connecting people to the land.

According to Bettina Ring, Executive Director of the BAOSC, “Transit and Trails is the first ever trip planner focused on parks and trails…It brings all the needed information to your fingertips so you can easily plan your outing.”

The ROI of Not Driving

The site also calculates the cost of driving to your destination and estimates the pounds of carbon you would save by using public transit, so you can calculate the ROI of leaving the car at home.

Wouldn’t this make a great iphone application?

Transit and Trails makes it easy for you to access all the amazing parks and open spaces in the Bay Area while minimizing costs (save on tolls, gas and parking) and reducing your carbon footprint. Give it a try!  Since I live in Marin and can reach many trails from my front door (or if I need to travel, I have the dog along)  I have not tried the service yet.

—

Deborah Fleischer is founder and president of Green Impact. She is a LEED AP with a Master in Environmental Studies from Yale University and over 20-years of direct experience working on sustainability-related challenges in both the public and private sectors. You can follow her at @GreenImpact.

US Army Forces Command & US Army Reserve Forces Command HQ - Under Construction

At first glance, you would think Fayetteville, NC was the mecca of affordable living. The city was voted one of America’s most military-friendly cities and has received quite a bit of national press over the past several months; primarily, for having one of the best performing real estate markets in the country. While  most markets are experiencing double-digit declines, Fayetteville’s growth has been consistent and the city has experienced double-digit appreciation year-over-year.

Rank: 5

Metro: Fayetteville (N.C.)
Share of homes with increasing values: 53.23%
Median value: $119,800
Annual change: 13.12%
Quarterly change: 2.22%

Source: BusinessWeek “The 30 Strongest Housing Markets In the US, August, 2009

If you’ve ever driven Interstate 95 through North Carolina, chances are you’ve driven through or refueled in Fayetteville. Fayetteville, NC has been the news a lot recently; not because it’s Julianne Moore’s hometown (and mine) but because of what’s going on there. The city is in the middle of a rather significant transformation and the country has been watching. Fayetteville is a part of the Sandhills Region and is located within Cumberland County, NC, which is home to Fort Bragg. Fort Bragg is on track to be one of the largest Army installations in the world. As a result of a 2005 BRAC commission recommendation, Fort MacPherson (GA) is scheduled to close. The US Army Forces Command and US Army Reserve Forces Command will be moved to Fort Bragg by March, 2011 and some 40,000 new residents will be added to the area. That’s huge for a city with a population just over 115,000. There is a gold rush underway all to accommodate the incoming troops and their dependents. How will the city manage this growth?

FORSCOM has a $30 billion annual obligation authority for defense and other contracts and provides unmatched opportunities for enterprising businesses who want to compete for these dollars. As a result, many defense-related companies have made the move or are in the planning stage to relocate to the Fort Bragg region. ~ BRAC Regional Task Force

The Disconnect

The Wall Street Journal reported on a Zillow finding that Fayetteville was experiencing double-digit appreciation. Is it good? Maybe for the developers. See, the city of Fayetteville has been largely reactive instead proactive as it relates to this new growth. Infrastructure improvements once delayed have become priority, and a zoning ordinance that hadn’t been revised since 1974 is being revamped. There is evidence of this lack of vision all throughout my hometown. Sidewalks are almost nonexistent in the most populated areas and the public transportation is like many smaller cities, inefficient. It’s safe to assume that the variables used in measuring the increases were partial.

Not only is Fayetteville the sixth largest city in North Carolina, it is also the flattest. Development continues to go out instead of up. I have spent several months researching infill opportunities there and sought to compare and contrast other projects that had been completed. I found one. A sole project downtown that everyone points to when asked about infill development in the city. It’s a well-designed building at the corner of Hay Street and Ray Avenue. Hay Street is the Main Street for the city and an attempt is underway to revitalize the entire downtown area. I understand the project sold out before construction was complete. It wasn’t large enough to create critical mass, but it was large enough to serve as a prototype for what can be accomplished in the city.

I’m not certain I follow the logic in repeating the history and development model that’s proven to be unsustainable but, as far as the city is concerned, there is no other model to follow. Largely, the prevailing housing options in Fayetteville and surrounding communities are single-family detached homes on cul-de-sacs. This model works here because land prices are still relatively cheap and construction prices have remained level compared to other parts of the country. Developers haven’t been challenged to do anything differently or engage in more sustainable development.

The Challenge

My search for sites was and continues to be pretty challenging. I have looked at three. One was in immediate vicinity to Fayetteville State University, and the other two are near Cape Fear Valley Hospital. I thought that if any area had potential for redevelopment, it was these two; the sites were located near the city’s largest employers. Well I was wrong. Growth doesn’t occur within the city limits but on the outskirts, where there is plenty of land. I was rather disappointed in my hometown because I’d assumed they’d reached a phase where they were ready to shed the image of Fayettenam and embark on a new direction; one that would retain some of the knowledge capital being produced locally and shipped out.

I met with the leadership of BRAC Regional Task Force (BRAC RTF) and if any organization locally “gets it,” they do. A quick Google search or glance through the phone book will reveal find few (if any) planners in this city that are not employed by the city (try it). I found one. BRAC RTF brought a much-needed element to the planning process. Engineers do all of the site planning and programming there, and it’s evident in the no-creativity-at-all sprawl throughout the city. It’s actually rather depressing. I left Fayetteville in 1997 and returned for a short while in 2008/9. Other than a few retailers and more vinyl-sided homes, much hasn’t changed in the All American City…the race is on to get it right.

The Opportunity

Ground has broken on Military Business Park, a planned one and half million square feet project located along the All American Defense Corridor. Some predict this  Southeastern North Carolina corridor could be the equivalent of Research Triangle Park, located about an hour and a half away. Smaller cities around the country have an incredible opportunity to position themselves as economic development generators once the real estate markets recover. Local leadership will have to make in-town development a priority and provide incentives for developers to do so.

If Fayetteville really leverages this national exposure, they can serve as a model for what other cities of its size can accomplish with vision and proper execution. The hunt is still on for the right opportunity in my hometown, and we’ll see how things progress over the next few months. Do you know of good examples of small towns that have made efforts to create car-free cities?

“For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart sustainable development.” President Obama

Obama Administration Urban Policy

From Washington Post | President Pitches Plan to Revive America’s Cities

President Obama, the first urban president since John F. Kennedy, is putting a new federal emphasis on revitalizing America’s cities with a coordinated effort that involves infusions of stimulus funding and getting multiple agencies to work together to improve schools, housing and neighborhoods.

The approach is winning applause from local officials and urban thinkers, who credit the administration for quietly beginning to put in place the most ambitious new policy for the nation’s urban areas since the Great Society programs of the 1960s. But the plan involves fundamental changes in the way federal agencies dole out assistance to urban areas, making its ultimate success uncertain.

“This is way more than an ocean liner trying to change direction,” said Angela Glover Blackwell, founder of PolicyLink, an advocacy organization that has consulted closely with the Obama administration. “This is glacial.”

Peniel E. Joseph, a Tufts University historian, said it appears that Obama is trying to reverse a trend in which urban issues slipped down the national agenda. Obama’s stimulus plan included at least $20 billion in funding for urban programs, outside of education.

“The stimulus certainly put billions into urban areas, but we are still going to have to see over the course of his administration what this adds up to,” Joseph said. “Right now we just don’t know.”

Obama has lamented the historic failures of federal efforts to rejuvenate urban areas, noting in July at a White House urban policy roundtable, “For too long, federal policy has actually encouraged sprawl and congestion and pollution, rather than quality public transportation and smart sustainable development.”

In the same way that federal highway spending encouraged sprawl, the Obama administration says more concentrated development can lead to more job opportunities for residents and neighborhoods that are both environmentally friendly and economically viable.

To coordinate his initiatives, Obama created the position of urban “czar” and in March named Adolfo Carrion Jr., the former Bronx borough president, to direct his new White House Office of Urban Affairs.

“This is not your father’s White House,” Carrion said in an interview. “This is a new way of looking at the new city-metro reality.”

Over the past two months, Carrion and other top administration officials — from agencies as diverse as the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency– have visited cities to observe innovative development schemes that fit the model.

In Kansas City, federal stimulus funds have galvanized a project called the Green Impact Zone, led by Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.), the city’s former mayor. About $200 million in mostly federal money will be invested in the project, which aims to transform an economically depressed 150-square-block area of the city known as “East of Troost Avenue.” With vacant homes, high crime and unemployment rates approaching 50 percent, about half of its residents live in deep poverty.

The project involves a coordinated rush of federal money. Stimulus funds will be used to weatherize the 2,500 homes in the community. Block grants from the Department of Energy will be used to hire area residents and train them to do energy audits. Meanwhile, the local power company will build a “smart grid” in the area, using $25 million in stimulus money and $25 million of their own. More than $30 million, mostly from the Department of Transportation, will be used to build a 13-mile rapid transit line through the community to downtown that will feature solar-powered stations and buses that run on bio-diesel fuel. There also will be job training in environmental clean up and community policing funded by various agencies.

Full | President Obama Pitches Plan to Revive America’s Cities

Photo credit: NASA, Johnson Space Center

by Liz Neves

In the big city, on any given day, anything seems possible. Millions of thinkers, dreamers, and doers exchange ideas, creative sparks, and currency. There are plenty of reasons to be a city dweller – more jobs, much inspiration, more opportunities to help people who need it. But there’s one big drawback to city dwelling, especially New York City dwelling: dismally poor air quality.

Some might argue we just can’t help it. In a city of millions where almost all of our goods are trucked in and 12,000 tons of residential trash is trucked out every day, how could we fight the beast of diesel exhaust? When coal-burning power plants in the MidWest are emitting mercury and other harmful pollutants that drift our way with the air currents, what are we supposed to do to stop that?

The health implications of poor air quality from diesel exhaust and coal burning are numerous. Increased asthma rates, increased rates of cancer, even endocrine disruption and reproductive disorders result from the multitude of particulates we inhale.

But there are measures we can take, as a community, as individuals to improve our outdoor air quality (stay tuned for ways to improve indoor air quality in a future post). Here are a few:

Plant and care for trees

Trees are amazing filters of air pollution. They take in carbon dioxide and absorb harmful particulates through their leaves. Certain cultivars are particularly good at filtering air pollution and tolerating the harsh environment of the city, including the London Plane, Silver Leaf Linden, and Gingko Biloba. Through the Bloomberg administration’s PlaNYC there is an effort to plant 1 million trees citywide, concentrating on neighborhoods who need it most, such as those with high asthma rates and few standing trees.

Unfortunately, young street trees have a high mortality rate; half of them don’t make it within the first couple of years. But there are groups whose sole purpose is to care for street trees, including Trees NY and the New York Restoration Project. The Brooklyn Botanic Garden’s GreenBridge Program provides free courses on tree care as well.

Improve the efficiency of your home or office

Consuming less energy means fewer resources will be burned, fewer pollutants will be released. Considering about 50% of this country’s energy comes from coal, it could make a big impact if we all changed a few of our home practices.

Simply installing and using a programmable thermostat can save money and energy use. Setting the thermostat to around 68 degrees F in winter (78 degrees F in summer) when you’re home and awake and lowering it (in winter) when your not home or asleep can help you save significantly on your home energy bill.

Sealing drafty windows and doors with inexpensive and simple devices like caulking and door draft guards can make a big difference. Black & Decker recently launched some new devices for home use, like the auto-off energy switch and thermal heat sensor to help you determine where you could use some extra insulation.

Setting your hot water heater to a lower setting can help you save, too. According to the US Department of Energy, “for each 10ºF reduction in water temperature, you can save between 3%–5% in energy costs.” Simply using cold water for laundry, washing your hands, and doing dishes can also help save some energy (and money).

You might be rewarded for your efforts to make your home run more efficiently. Check to see if you’re eligible for Federal Tax Credits through Energy Star.

Get more tips on improving your home’s efficiency from ReCharge America.

Support alternative sources of energy

New York City residents have the option to switch to alternative sources of energy, such as wind power, through Con Ed Solutions. To find out if you have a choice of energy source in your part of the country, check out Community Energy.

Walk, ride your bike, take mass transit

Who needs a gym? Walking and bicycling are both great ways to get where you’re going while burning calories, not air-polluting fuel. Find out how walkable your city is with Walk Score.

Utilizing mass transit, like trains or buses, reduces emissions, saves wear and tear on your car (if you’ve got one), and decreases fuel consumption.

Reduce overall consumption

If you haven’t yet seen the Story of Stuff, it’s an eye-opening short film detailing the history of our consumer culture. It’s sure to get you thinking about how much you buy and whether those purchases are really necessary.

It’s easy to buy less when you know a few basic skills like sewing on buttons or repairing broken appliances instead of tossing out the old and buy new. Groups like Brooklyn Skillshare are ensuring that communities maintain skills like bicycle repair, sewing, and food preparation so that we can be a bit more self-sufficient and reduce consumption of new things by utilizing the resources we have handy.

By reducing overall purchase of new products, we can dramatically reduce the amount of fuel (and other non-renewable resources) burned as well as cutting back on the trash we produce. And having less clutter can actually help you breathe a little easier as well.

Buy local

When goods don’t have far to travel, generally less fuel is spent in the process of getting them to your household. By supporting local businesses who make goods locally, you’ll not only reduce the burning of fuel, you’ll be boosting the local economy. Organizations like Buy in Brooklyn encourage community members to support their local business owners. Local Harvest will help you find what’s fresh and in season in your area.

Compost

Half of all the household trash created in NYC is compostable. That would mean instead of 600 tractor trailers hauling out our trash daily, there would potentially be 300, reducing the amount of diesel fuel burned by half. Composting also keeps food waste out of landfills where they would release methane gas, a greenhouse gas that’s 25 times more potent than carbon. Not to mention that food waste can be turned into a fruitful commodity, a valuable medium for growing nutritious food.

Get involved

It’s encouraging to see how many health and sustainability groups have formed or have been strengthened in recent years. Here are just a few organizations you can support or join who have air quality or related initiatives:

• Livable Streets Initiative
• Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC)
• Sierra Club Safeguarding Communities Initiative
• Environment America
• American Lung Association Clean Air Initiative

These are just a few ways we can improve the air we breathe. Do you know someone (organization, community group, individual) who is taking steps to improve air quality? How are you helping to improve air quality where you live?

“The dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew.”

I lived in Norfolk, Virginia approximately 10 years. It’s apart of the Hampton Roads (HR) region that comprises 16 different cities and counties with almost 1,700,000 residents. You’d think a region with a population that large would have strong growth prospects, producing thought leaders at a rapid pace and is a place where young professionals could grow and develop – quite the opposite is true. HR is home to several institutions of higher education and has a relatively recession proof economy given the presence of the largest naval base in the world. More recently the industry has become diverse away from government services as investments pour into the newly built ports in Portsmouth. What’s really interesting about this area is that not many have ever heard of “Hampton Roads, America’s First Region“, have you? Therein lies the problem.

Tunnels and Bridges to Nowhere

The region has a plethora of natural assets with water almost everywhere you look; on the contrary they too have their drawbacks and one of them – their separation. Locals call it the HRBT but some commuters call it hell and if you’ve ever visited HR during inclimate weather, an accident or rush hour, you’ve probably experienced the back ups at the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. You won’t hear much about the transportation woes from this side of the world. Though the region’s issues are very real, they often pale in comparison to their northern neighbor, Washington, DC who ranked forth in a recent Intrix report for having the worst congestion in the country. Hampton Roads was ranked 33rd. I noticed in the report that HR’s ranking didn’t change and represents the overall climate of region.

Hampton Roads is divided into two sections – South Hampton Roads (SHR) and the Peninsula. If you were a transplant, as I was, you’d think they were two foreign countries they way the were regarded in conversation. I lived in Norfolk (SHR) and commuted to Yorktown (Peninsula) for two years. When I told people that the expression on their faces suggested I’d told them I’d seen the Lochness Monster. I was a resident of Downtown Norfolk for several years and fell into the group-think trap that many do. I felt Downtown was “mine and not theirs” instead of a place to be shared among it’s city and region. Some 22,000 people worked downtown but only 15% or so, actually lived there. So you have a large group of people commuting into the city from neighboring cities.

Bridges and tunnels throughout Hampton Roads allow for better connectivity between the cities or at least in theory. Residents of the Peninsula rarely went to the SHR and residents of SHR only went through the Peninsula heading to Richmond, VA or DC. It’s almost as if there is a brood of snakes in the middle of these two areas that prevent them from intelligent dialogue about the region’s challenges. “We have different issues than the Peninsula” and vice versa. Serving on the Executive Committee of the ULI Hampton Roads, I saw the lack of motivation to engage leadership from the Peninsula as it was almost entirely South Hampton Roads businesses.

Competing Disinterest

Not only does the Peninsula and South Hampton Roads compete, you have very real competition among individual cities. Norfolk vs. Virginia Beach; Virginia Beach vs. Chesapeake; Newport News vs. Hampton; Williamsburg vs. Yorktown and on and on. It’s a bit ridiculous in my opinion. On a visit to Boston, from Charlestown, I looked over the Charles River and saw beautiful Downtown Boston. If you’re Downtown Norfolk and look across the Elizabeth River, you’re looking at Portsmouth, VA with a completely different government and conflicting visions. To compete with Downtown Norfolk, developers built Virginia Beach Town Center in the middle of suburbia to create a “downtown Virginia Beach”. At last count there are at least 5 “convention centers” with each city trying to attract their own clientele. What sense does that make if you can fit all of those convention centers into one like the Fort Worth Convention Center.

Comparison of Smart-Growth Versus Sprawl: Development for Virginia Beach, Virginia

Sprawl Costs Us All, Sierra Club

I’ve often became frustrated when I asked people what direction Hampton Roads was going in? I was met with the “Things won’t change until somebody dies” – interesting thought. Between Virginia Beach’s ‘No Cursing’ sign and Portsmouth’s Mayor woes, I feel the region’s leadership has missed the point somehow. Many efforts have been made to bring awareness to the issue of Regionalism but some are simply not interested in anything interrupting the status quo. Plagued by a flight of young professionals, stagnant job growth and a lack of diversity in housing has not helped the region break from it’s “slow” title. Norfolk ranked in the bottom ten on Richard Florida’s Creative Index even though Norfolk is seen as the ‘urban’ core of the region and has a downtown that’s revived over the last decade. The region (and state) has been unsuccessful at attracting a professional sports franchise. Before you had the Washington Nationals, they considered at Hampton Roads and before you had the New Orleans Hornets, again, they considered Hampton Roads. Even when it comes to professional sports, there is a lack of vision. Will the leadership wait to build a facility to accommodate a franchise or wait for another opportunity to bid on a team without the property facilities and infrastructure already in place?

Norfolk has the first 7 miles of light rail under construction now. Notice I said Norfolk, not Hampton Roads – I guess it’s a start. Because Virginia Beach can’t be out done, they are now meeting to discuss bringing light rail to their city. This is truly a moment to sigh. Do you think a stronger argument could have been made to build a light rail from to Norfolk to the Virginia Beach oceanfront versus a line to Virginia Beach’s city boundary? Before the line was under construction, I said that I could retire in HR if I could get from Williamsburg to Virginia Beach without getting in a car. At this rate, 7 miles every few years or so, I may be able to make that goal by 62, we’ll see.

Organizations like the Hampton Roads Partnership are doing an incredible job at promoting regionalism and feel they truly understand the issues. The city of Denver serves as a good model to follow. With a regional population of approximately 2,500,000, Denver has been consistently ranked as one of America’s most livable cities. The region’s mayors made a goal of being the America’s most healthy “community”. Not until regions stop the infighting, little progress will made. I’m convinced that the true competition is not our city next door or another region in our part of country (Atlanta, Charlotte etc). Our competition  is in China, India and other developing economies. Why is that so hard to grasp for many people? Tom Friedman speaks to that in his book The World is Flat. I’m cautiously optimistic.

I became a city planner because I wanted to marry my love for cities and my love for the environment.  I am not your typical “environmentalist.”  I am petrified of most animals and the only tree I hug is my Christmas tree before we send it to the curb.  Yes I do recycle and use a tote bag for groceries, but these token gestures do not equate to sustainability.  I want, like most people, to live a luxurious life.  The key is in figuring out how to live luxuriously and sustainably at the same time and on a middle class budget.

The parts of our cities designed post World War II are designed for the automobile and are thus innately unsustainable.  This is where most of us live and herein leys the problem.  Even if we put solar panels on our roofs and drive a Prius, we are still not living sustainably.  We still have to drive everywhere, which leads to more pavement, stormwater runoff, and water contamination; more gas used and air contamination; and more roads and parking lots, the loss of nature, and thus land contamination.  These things lead to other horrible things like the dependence on oil and thus national security issues and our overweight, over driven kids…but I’ll leave that for another day.  The topic of discussion here is that our modern cities and suburbs are not designed to be sustainable.

Building a green LEED certified house or building is important, but the framework of the neighborhood where we build that building is much more important.  Neighborhoods and cities that are connected and compact promote sustainable living allowing alternative transportation options – places where you can live, work and play without having to get into your car.  Now I’m not a car hater, I just think that a car should not be my only option to get from A to B.

In a car dominated society, your daily commute resembles photo group A.  You leave your house, drive to work on Anywhere, USA collector streets and a crowded interstate, to an office park, where you park and walk through a sea of parking to your building. This is definitely not sustainable, and I would argue not a preferable lifestyle either.

In a connected well designed society, your daily commute could look like photo group B.  You leave your house, drive, walk, ride or bike on networked streets to an urban mixed use area, where you can park your bike next to your building or disembark from your train nearby, and walk down an interesting sidewalk to your building or any other destination that may strike you.  This is where the luxurious lifestyle I prefer and the sustainable lifestyle I should lead are one in the same.

I plan to use this blog to highlight good and bad examples of urbanism.  I’ll use photographs to explain where a place went wrong or what they are doing right.  I look forward to everyone’s opinions, ideas and comments.  Thank you Yahya for the opportunity.