Ten keys to walkable communities

Writer Dan Burden, in a recent article, identified the top 10 features of walkable communities:

Smart growth and environmental justice

Massachusetts, Maryland, and New Jersey are building on the community-based planning and brown fields redevelopment elements of their smart growth efforts to take action on environmental justice concerns, according to a new report from The National Governor's Association.

“How Smart Growth Can Address Environmental Justice Issues” points out that, because smart growth can be used to empower local communities and focus investment on areas that need it most, this approach is often a natural "complement" to efforts to support environmental justice.

Home ownership benefits rich, study says

The tax benefits associated with owning one's own home are skewed toward owners with high incomes and high house prices.  But they are also skewed spatially, with a few areas receiving large benefits and most areas receiving small ones, according to a new report from the Brookings Institution.

“The Spatial Distribution of Housing-Related Tax Benefits in the United States” examined the distribution of homeownership tax benefits between states, across metropolitan areas, and within metropolitan areas.

It found, for example, that, while 10 percent of the country's homeowners live in California, the state captures 25 percent of the homeownership benefits flow.

At the metropolitan level, homeowners in New York, Los Angeles, and San Francisco receive a disproportionate share of homeownership benefits.

And nationally, the tax preference for owner-occupied housing results in a net transfer of just over $18 billion from central city areas to outlying areas of the country.

Traditional neighborhoods appreciate faster

Traditional neighborhood design (TND) communities appreciates economically faster than non-TND communities, according to a recent report in Builder Magazine.

The study, which looked at various neighborhoods across the country, showed that while the appreciation for homes in the three target TND neighborhoods was 16.7 percent during the study period, neighbors in nearby conventional communities averaged 14.2 percent during the same time period.

National Geographic features sprawl

The July issue of National Geographic magazine depicts life in American suburbs and the consequences of sprawl through stories and photographs.

With an accompanying website that features detailed information on sprawl and smart growth and links to additional resources, the site even allows visitors to explore a virtual New Urbanist community.