News links of interest via THE BACK FENCE 11-01-2009 ...

by thewestcorridorbackfence

Boomer professionals like me are destined to find our life choices reduced to marketing archetypes.  My new life evidently makes me part of a trend. I am a New Urbanist, a Third Life Boomer or, to the green movement, an exemplar of the new sustainable lifestyle who leaves a lighter, smaller carbon footprint on our planet by driving less, walking more and forgoing the energy-intensive life that goes with owning an edge-city McMansion and two sport-utility vehicles-or in my case, an 80-year-old house in suburban Detroit and a turbo-charged Japanese hotrod with a fuel-economy rating of just 20 miles per gallon. While everyone from the Sierra Club to the National Association of Realtors believe compact, mixed-use, walkable development is an antidote to suburban sprawl, “smart growth” doesn’t just happen by itself. Indeed it can’t because most existing municipal zoning regulations make walkable urban form exceedingly difficult, if not impossible to implement. Surprisingly, this is often the case in large cities as much as it is in their sprawling suburbs. Therefore, one of the most effective ways to move smart growth from concept to reality, and at a meaningful scale, is to toss out the very zoning regulations that prevent sustainable growth from happening in the first place. Last week, Miami, Florida became the largest city in America to do so. “People are, in droves, beginning to ask themselves ‘Why am I forced to buy all these cars just to be a part of this world?’  ” he said. “The biggest economic trend of the next generation will be people dropping one or two cars and investing that money in housing, education or savings.”  “Dublin has to begin to think about how to stay competitive in 10, 20 or 30 years,” Foegler said. “The detached, single-family housing market in neighborhoods where you have to drive to even get a gallon of milk has Can science explain why some transit system maps are...

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