Residential Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan Regions

The EPA examined residential building permits in the 50 largest metropolitan regions to determine if there has been a shift toward redevelopment and in which regions the shift has been most significant. The trends indicate that the distribution of residential construction has significantly changed over time in many regions. In more than half of the largest metropolitan areas, urban core communities have dramatically increased their share of new residential building permits. However, in many regions, a large share of new residential construction still takes place on previously undeveloped land on the urban fringe.

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Dangerous by Design: Solving the Epidemic of Preventable Pedestrian Deaths (and Making Great Neighborhoods)

Dangerous by Design – co-authored by T4America in partnership with STPP, America Bikes, America Walks, and the American Public Health Association – ranks metropolitan areas based on the relative danger of walking. Nearly 5,000 Americans die preventable deaths each year on roads that fail to provide safe conditions for pedestrians.

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Moving Minds: Conservatives and Public Transportation

Reconnecting America is co-publishing the book Moving Minds: Conservatives and Transit, “a collection of studies by renown conservative transit advocates Paul Weyrich and William Lind.” The studies have, “helped conservatives understand why transit should be an essential part of the conservative agenda: because it enhances national security, promotes economic development, helps maintain conservative values including a sense of community, and provides welfare recipients with access to jobs.”

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Realizing the Potential: One Year Later: Housing Opportunities for Transit in a Changing Market Place

The Center for Transit-Oriented Development, “has updated its Realizing the Potential: Expanding Housing Opportunities Near Transit study for the FTA and HUD, which assessed strategies to promote mixed-income housing along five transit corridors in Boston, Charlotte, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Denver and Portland. The new study, Realizing the Potential: One Year Later, finds the downturn in the housing market is playing out very differently in the five regions, and that it hasn’t increased home ownership opportunities for working families.”

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Less Auto-Dependent Development Is Key to Mitigating Climate Change, Research Team Concludes

New book documents how key changes in land development patterns could help reduce vehicle greenhouse gas emissions

UPDATE: Projected 2030 VMT, 2030 vehicle emissions, and potential CO2 savings updated below in bold to match the published version of the book.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Meeting the growing demand for conveniently located homes in walkable neighborhoods could significantly reduce the growth in the number of miles Americans drive, shrinking the nation’s carbon footprint while giving people more housing choices, according to a team of leading urban planning researchers.

In a comprehensive review of dozens of studies, published by the Urban Land Institute, the researchers conclude that urban development is both a key contributor to climate change and an essential factor in combating it.

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Q & A with Author Anthony Flint

Anthony Flint, author of the new book, “This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America.” covered planning and transportation issues for the Boston Globe before leaving several months ago to help his home state of Massachusetts communicate with citizens about its smart growth programs. He recently was named public affairs director of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy in Cambridge. In a conversation with SGA’s communications director, David Goldberg, Flint talks about his emerging optimism.

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