Sprawl
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The Strain of Job Sprawl on Two-Income Households
When Mark Lampert was a kid, his mom stayed home with him and his brothers. His dad was out the door by 4:30 every morning, driving to the commuter lot in their distant Houston suburb to take the bus in to the city for work. He had friends whose parents both worked, and when those friends came home from school they had the house to themselves – “which is why we went over there to build pipe bombs,” Mark said. At Mark’s house, dinner was ready and everyone was home by 6:00 every night.
August 9, 2012
The Incredible Shrinking Megastore: Retailers Think Outside the Big Box
They lord over empty parking lots in Hazard, Kentucky; Twinsburg, Ohio; and Lewiston, Washington like the ruins of a lost civilization. Vacant Walmart stores are slowly decomposing in more and more American towns these days. More than 100 of them have been memorialized as part of the group Flickr pool known smugly as "They Sold for Less."
September 15, 2011
Meet the Obscure Unelected Agencies Strangling Many U.S. Cities
Do you know the name of your local Metropolitan Planning Organization or Council of Government? Most Americans don't. In fact, most people probably have no idea these agencies even exist, let alone what they do. Yet they are surprisingly powerful and play a substantial role in shaping the places where we live and work.
July 21, 2011
Third Houston Outerbelt Would Turn Prairies Into Texas Toast
There's a place just outside Houston where the vinyl siding and attached garages thin out and recede into grasslands.
April 28, 2011
Bay Area Governments Begin Developing Regional Smart Growth Plan
Local governments in the Bay Area have begun a coordinated regional effort to shift toward more sustainable urban planning mandated by the state's landmark anti-sprawl bill, SB 375, which set ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) and called for better integration of land use and transportation planning.
March 16, 2011
A Metro Detroit Business Owner on the Talent-Repelling Effect of Sprawl
The owner of a patent law firm in recession-battered metro Detroit may have to leave Michigan, and it's not because of the taxes, says Andrew Basile, Jr. His firm, which employs 40 people in the city of Troy, spends "more on copiers and toner than we do on state taxes." The problem, Basile says, is that the firm can't attract talent to Michigan because of the "poor quality of place" and "car culture" that prevails in the region.
March 14, 2011
Report: Want to Ease Commuter Pain? Highways and Sprawl Won’t Help
Imagine two drivers leaving downtown to head home. Each of them sits in traffic for the first ten miles of the commute but at that point, their paths diverge. The first one has reached home. The second has another twenty miles to drive, though luckily for her, the roads are clear and congestion doesn't slow her down. Who's got a better commute?
September 29, 2010
In Historic Vote, CARB Adopts Targets Under Landmark Anti-Sprawl Bill
In a historic and unanimous vote yesterday, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) adopted ambitious targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and 2035, a move that will compel the state's metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to better integrate land use and transportation planning.
September 24, 2010
Sprawl Anemones
Rarely would one describe sprawl as beautiful, but photographer Christoph Gielen managed to find some of the more incredible developments in the country and depict them in aerial photographs as a testament to the land use patterns he finds so distinctively and disturbingly American.
September 24, 2010
MTC Adopts Aggressive 15 Percent Target for Reducing Emissions by 2035
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC), in a historic vote Wednesday that will help guide the future for more sustainable land use and transportation planning in the Bay Area, recommended a 15 percent per capita target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions (GHG) by 2035, the most aggressive goal to date among California's metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs).
July 29, 2010