Planning Quote of the Day

everyone has to have a car

"Why do we lay out subdivisions that make it impossible for a ten-year old to walk to a store for a Popsicle or a loaf of bread? Why are streets and land uses in postwar suburbs arranged so that everyone has to have a car to reach even the most routine daily destinations? Wouldn't it be better if everyday necessities were easy to reach and if the streets and sidewalks were designed as convivial places for meeting friends and neighbors?"

-- Philip Langdon, "New Development, Traditional Patterns" (in Planning Commissioners Journal #36)

note: this article is also available as part of a collection of articles on Understanding Smart Growth.

inclusionary development policies

"Inclusionary development policies, by considering the impact of public actions on housing availability for all citizens of the community and region, have resulted in significant progress toward the realization of a just society."

-- Laurence Gerckens, FAICP, from the Planning ABC's

be eternally vigilant

Q. How do you see the developer?

A. Clearly he is the one through whom the money is flowing to build our environment. The kind of thing the developers won't pay for, like low-cost housing, is not being built. I don't mean that developers are sinister, but they do have the power to shape the environment. That's why towns, cities and preservation societies have to be eternally vigilant. ...

-- from interview of noted architectural historian Vincent Scully by New York Times reporter Eleanor Charles (February 7, 1988)

definition: eco-municipality

"An eco-municipality, (also known as an eco-town) is a local government government that has adopted ecological and social justice values in its charter. ... The distinction between an eco-municipality and other sustainable development projects (such as green building & alternative energy) is the focus on community involvement and social transformation in a public agency as well as the use of a holistic systems approach."

-- from Wikipedia, Eco-municipality

Note: for more on the origins of eco-municipalities, and the interest in them by U.S. cities, see the post Eco-Municipalities Step Forward Naturally on our PlannersWeb blog.

and denounce it

"Long Island is a land of bedrooms, not an incubator of urban-planning concepts, and for every smart-growth PowerPoint or op-ed article favoring townhouses, you will have at least 50 enraged citizens who will show up at a public hearing and denounce it. ... Asked which type of neighborhood they preferred -- one where you could walk to stores or one that required driving -- 56 percent said they would rather drive."

-- Lawrence Downes, op-ed "The City Is the Future of the Suburbs, and Other Heresies," in The New York Times (Jan. 29, 2008)

Note: Downes draws on the results of a survey of Long Islanders -- interestingly, the survey's authors put a very different spin on the findings. Consider also the blog posting I entered today on our PlannersWeb blog about one key trend in smart growth -- linking it to action on climate change.

the most challenging aspect of smart growth

"Directing growth and investment back into existing communities without displacing lower-income residents is the most challenging aspect of smart growth. But the alternative – sprawl – has not been great for communities of color and lower income families, either. Unmanaged growth has contributed to: racial and economic segregation; a spatial mismatch between workers in older urban neighborhoods and rural communities and suburban job centers; a draining of investment from older communities; and exclusionary housing practices that bar the poor and people of color from suburbs. Smart growth policies have the potential to reverse these trends. If done inclusively, with the involvement and guidance of neighborhood  residents and community-based organizations from the start."

-- Leah Kalinosky, from "Does Smart Growth = Equitable Growth," in Planning Commissioners Journal #45 (Winter 2002).

Note: Kalinosky's article is also included in our just released publication, Taking a Closer Look: Smart Growth (available as our March special offer).