And this, originally appearing in Harvard Design Magazine. But apparently it works the same everywhere:
The project-specific complaints follow familiar patterns too. The traffic in every neighborhood is, apparently, already intolerable, no matter what the transportation consultants say about “level of service.” The project will only worsen it, infringing upon residents’ inalienable right to uncongested streets. …
<snip>
A […]

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Veddy interesting forum over at the NYT’s Freakonomics blog on the future of the American suburb - whether, in the era of high energy prices, it’s destined to collapse, to evolve, or just keep on keeping on.
Perhaps the most interesting response to the question of what our suburbs look like in 40 years comes from […]

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Hm. From the Bucks County Courier Times:
It’s being touted as the hot new trend in development — as a way to build high-density housing while reducing traffic, increasing mass transit use and enhancing overall quality of life.
It’s called transit-oriented development — TOD to those in development circles. It’s meant to “fully capitalize on [a transit […]

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So the Yokel, apparently back from a vacation in the Boston area (or perhaps just using The Google), has a piece from the Reading, Mass., newspaper on how that community is trying to implement it’s own version of “smart growth”:
“The idea of a Smart Growth District in downtown is born out of the community’s interest […]

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Except that here in Lancaster County, the moment the head of the regional planning agency goes to meet with developers he’s instantly called a sell-out, obviously shilling for the building industry.

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Discussion last night about how Lancaster County’s economy seems to weather the economic storms better than most. There are reasons for that, but also limits.
So I was curious to see this piece linked on Atrios, about rising retail vacancies:
Strip malls, which are usually anchored by grocery or drug stores, saw average vacancies spike 0.5 percentage […]

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Ah, the Yokel rides again. As if there were any doubt.

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Ah, well.
I see LancoYokel spent his Sunday penning a critique of last week’s print output. Which is fine. Though I’ll stay away from the criticism of the convention center piece because I unfortunately will probably be writing more stories about this issue as we go down the line, and as a general rule I mostly […]

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If you spend any time on Good Drive, you’ve probably noticed it: The new stoplight at Noll Drive.

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Via Atrios, more news of the death of suburbia:
As the realization takes hold that rising energy prices are less a momentary blip than a restructuring with lasting consequences, the high cost of fuel is threatening to slow the decades-old migration away from cities, while exacerbating the housing downturn by diminishing the appeal of larger homes […]

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Interesting. Kunstler gives an interview to NPR in which he talks about the “end of surburbia as we know it” - a consistent theme with him - and says this:
Kunstler says that big cities will become more population dense at their centers and along waterfronts, but they’ll essentially contract as people will move to smaller […]

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On the way out to the dentist this a.m. and I passed a bunch of signs for TRRAAC, the folks who live in the Farmingdale Road/Barrcrest area and oppose plans to move the Norfolk Southern rail yard into their backyards. There’s a meeting on the proposal tomorrow night, but as I read the story in […]

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Hm. I await, now, the same sort of outrage over this as was generated by “The Crossings.”
Won’t happen of course. Specifically because Dale High’s not involved.
But, curious to see this. About 6-8 months ago, I’d heard a few whispers that another “lifestyle center” was in the works. More than that, it was suggested that someone or some […]

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You want to slow development? Run out of water.

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Fascinated by this story, linked on Drudge, in which Sioux City, S.D., voted 58-42 to permit a rezoning that would allow the first oil refinery to be built in the continental United States in 32 years.
At stake was billions of dollars in capital investment and thousands of high-paying jobs. From the beginning, Hyperion executives said […]

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Atrios talking here about urban development, but could be talking too about development in places like Lancaster County:
People see a big project coming and they worry about disruption to their neighborhood and an increase in traffic/decrease in local available parking. But worrying too much about minimizing disruption leads to people wanting to simply shrink a […]

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And now, one from the grassy knoll.

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Via Atrios, this one from the Allentown Morning Call:
For nearly a decade, tax-weary people from New Jersey and New York poured into the Lehigh Valley in search of a bigger home on a bigger lot, and developers couldn’t build so-called McMansions fast enough to meet demand. But as a credit crisis sweeps the nation, forcing […]

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See, I really shouldn’t read these things. And then I do read these things and wish I didn’t, because I get so *&^$#@& annoyed.

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Teh funny. Jeff Hawkes gets hold of an inadvertent e-mail sent by an East Hempfield supervisor in which said supervisor trashes some off his colleagues.
These things happen. I’m sure that in virtually every municipality across the country, this sort of catfighting goes on, and it’s indicative of nothing more than a clash of personalities.
What interests me […]

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