Sprawl

Natural Fort, Colorado

As Community's Colorado's Front Range Grows, Road Planning Follows

Transportation planners are creating extra road capacity to keep up with sprawling development in the I-25 corridor in Colorado's Northern Front Range.

September 19, 2019 - The Denver Post

San Luis Valley, Colorado

Imported Water Needed to Fuel Colorado Sprawl

An old-fashioned story of wealthy developers coming for the water supply of low-income farming communities is being reprised in Colorado.

September 18, 2019 - The Denver Post

The Uplands

150 Acres of Undeveloped Land to Become 2,350 Homes Outside Denver

The church that owns a unique parcel of agricultural land in the middle of the Denver metropolitan area is prepared to sell to a developer that plans to build a mixed-use, master planned community.

September 11, 2019 - The Denver Post

Arizona

28,000 Homes Planned for Desert Southeast of Tucson

A master planned community would add 70,000 new residents to a city of 5,000 located southeast of Tucson, Arizona. Local and regional environmental groups don't think the environmental risks of the development have been properly considered.

September 9, 2019 - Arizona Public Media

Grand Canyon National Park

Grand Canyon-Adjacent Development Revises Plans to Pave Roads Through National Forest

Developers want to build roads through the Kaibab National Forest to serve a controversial development, including a resort and hundreds of homes, planned for a location just South of the Grand Canyon.

September 7, 2019 - Arizona Republic

Historic Towns

Land Use of 2,200-Acre Site Holds Up 'Livable Frederick' Plan in Western Maryland

City councilmembers are debating the future of a 2,200-acre former aluminum smelting plant in Frederick, Maryland. The debate centers on the viability of the parcel as transit-oriented development.

August 21, 2019 - The Frederick News-Post

Cedar Rapids Floods

Coastal States Are Building in Flood Zones Faster Than Anywhere Else

Here's a trillion dollar real estate market on the coasts of the United States—and it's building itself into rising levels of risk.

August 5, 2019 - The New York Times

Eviction

The Star-Studded Discussion of the National Housing Debate

Residential zoning has long been considered a local issue, but some presidential candidates have started weighing in on zoning and housing. Journalists, pundits, and researchers have plenty of complexity to examine as the debate changes venue.

July 25, 2019 - KCRW

Chicago Train Commute

Planners Can Help Increase Opportunity and Fairness

Transportation and land use planning decisions affect economic opportunity and mobility—the chance that children become more economically successful than their parents. We can help create more equitable communities.

July 24, 2019 - Todd Litman

Autonomous Vehicle

Advocates Press for Harder Questions While Pittsburgh Experiments With Self-Driving Cars

Five self-driving car companies are currently operating in Pittsburgh, without much critical rigor in asking about the consequences of the technology to the city.

July 22, 2019 - Streetsblog USA

New Highways

Kentucky Planning a New Freeway Around Louisville, Raising Alarms

Local news sources are shedding light on planning for a new highway route that could pass through sensitive habitat of endangered that has yet to undertake a formal environmental or public input process.

July 11, 2019 - WFPL

Hurricane Harvey

Scrutiny for Houston Development Patterns After New Stormwater Regulations

Advocates and researchers say new development regulations, with more stringent flood protections, aren't doing enough to control the stormwater impacts of sprawl.

July 9, 2019 - Community Impact Newspaper

Gaslamp Quarter

Climate Crisis, Housing Crisis on a Collision Course

Sprawl might relieve the housing crisis, but it would also exacerbate the climate crisis. Tough choices will be necessary in regions like San Diego, where the question of where to accommodate growth is very much in question.

July 2, 2019 - The San Diego Union-Tribune

The Bronx

Successful Metropolitan Areas Prioritize Proximity

Brookings buils on the findings of recent research about jobs densification in cities around the country to make a larger point about the benefits of proximity in urban design, as compared to sprawl.

June 26, 2019 - Brookings

Chicago Commuter Rail

Op-Ed: Metra Expansion May Encourage Sprawl

The $45 billion transportation bill approved by the Illinois Legislature ended up including more public transit funding than it originally offered, but a Kendall County Metra project raises questions.

June 20, 2019 - Streetsblog Chicago

Irrigiation Channel

Water Situation Changes for Sprawling Phoenix-Area Development, Delayed by the Recession

The Phoenix metropolitan area is growing again, but the water supply isn't. Many development plans derailed by the Great Recession won't find it easy to start where they left off.

June 1, 2019 - Arizona Republic

Seaside Entrance

New Urbanism and Jacobs: A Tangled Disconnect

New Urbanism was in part born of the criticisms of 20th century planning principles popularized by Jane Jacobs, but Jacobs infamously derided the new school of thought.

May 31, 2019 - Fanis Grammenos

Sprawl

The Wonderful World of Vicious Circles

Government's pro-sprawl and anti-density policies often create problems that justify more of the same.

May 20, 2019 - Michael Lewyn

Horse Farm

Support for Shrinking the Nation's Oldest Growth Boundary

Lexington, Kentucky's growth boundary survived a comprehensive plan update in 2019, after years of controversy. A housing crisis, a growing city, and a broken land use system are rearranging the political arithmetic behind the greenbelt.

May 18, 2019 - CityLab

MacEwan 480

Controversial Development a Big First Step Into Untouched Desert North of Phoenix

The developers of 1,400 homes in the desert north of Phoenix say they understand the responsibility of being the first to develop an area. Opponents would rather there was no development at all.

May 15, 2019 - Arizona Republic

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