Study indicates subsidized business relocations fuel sprawl in Cleveland area
Crain’s Cleveland Business, July 7, 2011
A study that claims to be the largest ever done in the United States of subsidized business relocations indicates that property tax breaks given to entice companies to move within the Cleveland area have worsened wealth inequities in the region and have fueled suburban sprawl.

Fiery words over GOP proposal to cut transportation funds
The Washington Post, July 7, 2011
As congressional leaders from both parties traveled up Pennsylvania Avenue on Thursday for a White House meeting on finances, open hostilities broke out on the traditionally bipartisan House transportation committee over a GOP proposal to cut spending by about $15 billion a year. Democrats said the plan would cost 490,000 jobs. They called it “mind-boggling” and “fantasy funding”; they said the committee chairman, John L. Mica (R-Fla.), was “out to lunch” and “a dictator.” Alarmed interest groups called the bill a “grave mistake” and a “sure-fire job killer.”

Report blames zoning laws for lack of affordable housing in New Jersey
The Star-Ledger (N.J.), July 7
The report, conducted by Rowan University, says it’s tougher for lower-income residents to afford to live in wealthy suburban towns today than it was in 1970. All this occurs despite the long effort to push towns to add affordable housing and adhere to “smart growth” initiatives, and zoning rules are to blame, the report says.

Highway Shutdown to Paralyze America’s Second-Largest City
AltTransport, July 7, 2011
The clogging of the Interstate 405 corridor is the result of understandable market forces—but they’re forces that could have some truly scary consequences if they aren’t counterbalanced by smart growth policy. The chaos coming to the LA area in mid-July is certainly easy to mock, but it reveals some very serious infrastructural and planning challenges.