Back in July we alerted TM readers to Dwell Magazine’s ReBurbia competition. Well, the submissions are in, and unsurprisingly, the 20 finalists are filled with super creative, but fantastical, totally outrageous proposals.
We know suburbia needs retrofitting. The 20th century was about building the damn thing, but seeing the results, we have to use the 21st [...]
Posts under ‘Sprawl’
ReBurbia Proposals Up For Vote
Calling All Designers: Can You Do Better Than This?
Dwell Magazine, a publication obsessed with the uber now, is holding a design competition called Re-Burbia, which encourages designers to take a fresh approach to suburbia. Ironically, this is coming from a Magazine that has long supported the very school of thought that helped create sprawl in the first place. It seems the growing trend [...]
Q: What is The World’s Greatest Threat?
A: Cul-de-Sacs!
Or so asserts this excellent new video-polemic from the Congress for the New Urbanism. One has to agree, that in the least, that we should worry less about the single punctuated events, like swine flu, and pay a hell of a lot more attention to the sum of all the small-scale decisions we make [...]
Sprawling From Grace
To celebrate the arrival of Earth Day, David M. Edward’s Sprawling From Grace: The Consequences of Suburbanization, an excellent new documentary, is available for free viewing until tomorrow at 11:59 pm. Click here for the trailer, and here to download the full film. Enjoy, and may it inspire you to do more in the war [...]
Action Alert: Stop Sprawl, Say No To Senate Bill 360
Clean Water Action is rallying the anti-sprawl troops. Click here to quickly tell your senator that you do not support repealing anti-sprawl legislation.
This bill would remove critical growth management authority by the state’s Department of Community Affairs; eliminate transportation concurrency and Development of Regional Impact review in some communities.
Strong growth management laws were [...]
Sprawl is Dead, says Obama
The livable streets and smart growth blogosphere was set fire today when President Obama declared the end of sprawl in Fort Meyers, Florida — a poster child for the sprawl-induced mortgage meltdown.
The days where we’re just building sprawl forever, those days are over. I think that Republicans, Democrats, everybody… recognizes that’s not a smart way [...]
Parkland One Step Closer On Heels of Kendall Apathy
According to this Miami Herald article, the Kendall Federation of Homeowners Associations is coming up mute on Lennar’s proposed Parkland Development, a 931-acre 7,000 home sprawlburg that requires yet another adjustment of Miami-Dade’s urban growth boundary. Perhaps the members of this Federation cannot bring themselves to be hypocrites. That is, the boundary was once moved [...]
Move The UDB For Lennar? Just Say No.
Lennar corp., a well-known developer of suburban tract homes, has its sights on pushing the bounds of Miami-Dade’s controversial urban development Boundary (UDB). Today’s Miami Herald article explains the politics, players and issues at play. Perhaps the most notable comment is that the ignominiously named Parkland, a 900-acre UDB busting “sustainable” development in [...]
Take the 2 Mile Challenge
Clif Bar, the purveyor of well-known and quite tasty energy bars, has long been an eco-conscious company. However, they have taken their advocacy to a new level with the Clif Bar 2 Mile Challenge.
Their fantastic website gives you the facts about climate change, connects it to human behavior, allows you to build your bicycle (assuming [...]
Another Day, Another Demo
On the bike ride to work this morning I stopped to snap a couple of photos. The first displays the Miami Arena on its way out. The second, the once beautiful and ‘coulda been saved if the political will was there, ala Coppertone Girl and Marine Stadium,’ East Coast Fisheries building on the Miami River.
As [...]
Mexico City: Mega-City, Mega-Smog, Mega-transit
I returned yesterday from a whirlwind weekend trip to Mexico City. My head is still buzzing, perhaps due to the overwhelming amount of smog, but more likely because the sheer amount of kinetic energy inherent to the world’s seventh largest city is still pulsing through my veins. I will post more complete and complementary [...]
Miami-Dade Commissioner has an ‘idea’
Miami-Dade Commission Charmain Bruno Barreiro woke up this morning and decided that he wanted to see a permanent development boundary somewhere west of the UDB (and east of Naples). Matthew Pinzur writes about Barreiro’s big idea in the Herald. He wants to rethink the boundary so that there is a buffer between the Everglades and [...]
How an Atlanta Family Slashed its Carbon Footprint and Gained a Life
The following article below is a reprint from NPR.org on April 1, 2008:
Atlanta Family Slashes Carbon Footprint
Atlanta resident Malaika Taylor used to live the typical suburban life — the kind that helps make America the world’s top contributor to climate change. But four years ago, fed up with commuting, Taylor and her 11-year old daughter, [...]
More Bad News…
The Herald is reporting that the county commission overturned Mayor Alvarez’s veto in favor of moving the Urban Development Boundary for a Lowe’s at 8th St and 137th Ave and a retail center at Kendall Drive and (gulp), 167th Avenue (i.e. the Everglades). More sprawl, more self-interests, more incompetence. We’ll have lots more on this [...]
Pic o’ the Day
Natacha Seijas, Pepe Diaz and crew want more of this…
Photo: Flickr
