The essense of New Suburbanism is to support a clean, but wider human footprint - which is anathema to much of conventional environmentalist wisdom.  In many parts of the world, such as within the state of California, there is abundant open space. California, especially within its vast interior, has hundreds upon thousands of virtually vacant square miles of rolling foothills, [...]

Our post yesterday, “Taking on Smart Growth” prompted a lengthy exchange between the author and a very well informed critic. Despite our best efforts to communicate our point of view, ultimately the critic described our criticisms of new urbanism as coming from “Wingnuttia.” Rather than continue to argue the point on yesterday’s post, [...]

Definition: “New Urbanism - the revival of our lost art of place-making, and promotes the creation and restoration of compact, walkable, mixed-use cities.”
It is completely impractical to make everything “walking distance” from everything else. People like cars. The car is the most liberating personal appliance ever invented. The new urbanist war [...]

Definition:  “New Urbanism - the revival of our lost art of place-making, and promotes the creation and restoration of compact, walkable, mixed-use cities.”
On one of www.TreeLink.org’s posts, I noticed the tag “urban forestry is America’s frontline defense against climate change.”  I couldn’t agree more.
So how is this statement reconciled with “new urbanism” and “smart growth” that [...]

To follow up on yesterday’s post, it has become more clear than ever how land use decisions are the place where every tenant of environmentalism is applied, yet the centrality of land use, like the centrality of population demographics, is rarely the focus of environmental discussions.  But if population demographics provide the primary preconditions for [...]

Not long ago I learned of an excellent service for urban forestry, www.treelink.org, which has a list-serve that is possibly the most subscribed interlink for professional arborists in the United States, if not the world.  For several weeks now I’ve been reading the emails that fly back and forth between these folks who have the [...]