Content about Environment

Along the Ohio River in Cincinnati, the new Smale Riverfront Park is taking root. The park will enhance the health of citizens, the character of the city, and the economic vitality of the area. These big aspirations are grounded by a fascinating network of systems relating to mobility, flood resilience, energy, and partnerships.

As more and more urbanites flock to Denver, they are beginning to demand more from their city. More bike lanes, more active public places, more creativity, more spaces designed for people. Rather than waiting for authorities to transform their streets and neighborhoods, they are taking action.  The new website TacticalUrbanismHere.com documents these urban interventions to show how small-scale change can have a big impact on Denver neighborhoods.

If you think streets are for driving, you’re not alone. But you are also not thinking outside the box. Open Streets initiatives are taking root across the continent, with communities everywhere looking to use their streets for walking, dancing, bicycling, partying, and dozens of other activities that can help build healthier, stronger, more sustainable communities.  Here are three ideas and resources from the Planning Tool Exchange to help you open your streets to more than just cars.

Turning streams of data--demographic information, population projections, number etc.--into meaningful and easily visualized information can be challenging and time consuming for planners. Likewise, figuring out land use and population projections as well as economic and social conditions can be maddeningly difficult. Urban planners and designers can greatly benefit from three types of data visualization that have emerged over the past few years. 

Urban planners can often find it difficult to assess the impact of sprawl in their municipalities. Calculating future infrastructure needs and the various fiscal impacts of different land use decisions can be challenging and time consuming. Enter New Hampshire’s new Cost of Sprawl tool (www.costofsprawl.org). The New Hampshire Cost of Sprawl (NHCOS) is an internet-based model to examine the impact of land uses and sprawl on municipalities in New Hampshire and allows planners to get a sense of the fiscal impact of certain land use patterns on municipalities. Created under the auspices of the New Hampshire Office of Energy and Planning (NHOEP) and developed by RKG Associates, Placeways, and Urban Interactive Studio, this tool is geared toward town planners in New Hampshire.

With all the options for social media today, it is a common concern we’re faced with: what is the best way to engage citizens and stakeholders cost effectively? We all want to get information out quickly to relevant audiences whose expectations for information access have grown so fast. So which outreach channel should we be focused on? According to the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 92 percent of adults use email which can be thought of as “the central hub of all online communication.”

Check out live streaming of CNU 20's - Looking Forward: New Urbanism and the New World. As the Congress for New Urbanism enters its third decade, economic, political, and environmental conditions pose serious challenges for the built and natural environment, as well as New Urbanist practice. Three of CNU's Founders will open this session with lectures addressing these challenges. Andres Duany will present the 21st century crises that call for New Urbanists to adapt, including slow development, the public process, suburban retrofit, agricultural urbanism, and the theology of metrics. Dan Solomon will discuss the tensions between new urbanism's roots in the nuanced complexity of the city and the reductive codifying of New Urbanist practice.

As practitioners, associates and friends of New Urbanism gather on Florida’s Gold Coast for the 20th Congress, we find a New World of challenges and opportunities before us. Our world, already beset with the challenges of peak oil, climate change, and wealth disparity, finds global economic crisis confronting us with the equivalent fury of tropical storms from old Florida lore.

Last week, the White House announced that they are actively seeking input from citizens to help identify best practices for public participation in government and suggest metrics that will allow agencies to assess progress toward the goal of becoming more participatory. The solicitation for input is directly related to the U.S. Open Government National Action Plan which was announced earlier this Fall as a government-wide effort to reform and modernize records management policies and practices.    

A new series of free workshops on smart growth development are catching the attention of policy makers and community leaders across the country. The set of 12 workshops are designed to show local leaders how smart growth strategies can support a local economy and protect the environment while preserving the character of a town and making it more attractive to visitors or new residents.