NY Times Magazine: “The Autonomist Manifesto (Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Road)”

Dense urban living works for some people, but not for many others. Planners need to balance their visions with a respect for the core wants and needs of today’s families.It is true that cars can lead to pollution and other problems. Many Smart Growth planners have tried to discourage driving by making it hard to park and drive. […]

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AP: Massachusetts home sales post double-digit decline

Today’s Gazette relays the following reports from AP: State home sales post double-digit declineHome sales in Massachusetts are down by a double-digit percentage for the third month in a row……a 15 percent drop in single-family home sales in November compared with the same month a year ago…Condominium sales fell 23 percent in November.Condo prices are […]

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Robert H. Kuehn Jr.: “Thinking Like a Developer”

Robert H. Kuehn Jr., a champion of affordable housing and mixed-use developments, contributed “Thinking Like a Developer” to Preserving and Enhancing Communities: A Guide for Citizens, Planners and Policymakers (2007). Kuehn discusses brownfields revitalization, avoiding acrimony, and a common developer mistake that drives density (p.42-51): A key issue is whether the property to be developed […]

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Photo Essay: Our Woods in Winter

Here are pictures taken yesterday from the bike path and roads surrounding the woods behind North Street. Kohl Construction proposes to build 26 condo units in and around these woods. As observed in Preserving and Enhancing Communities: A Guide for Citizens, Planners, and Policymakers, Protecting open space is often about protecting what makes a community special […]

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Krugman, NY Times: Home Prices Have Plenty of Room on the Downside

Home prices need to fall substantially to bring them into alignment with incomes, writes Paul Krugman for The New York Times (12/14/07). This process will jeopardize an enormous number of homeowners and lenders alike: After the Money’s GoneTo restore a historically normal ratio of housing prices to rents or incomes, average home prices would have […]

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Smart Growth: When Polls and Reality Diverge

We are not in favor of unsustainable living, but identifying and implementing sustainable practices is more complex than it might appear… It is common knowledge among pollsters that what people say may differ from what they do. This is particularly the case when a question has a “politically correct” answer (see “spiral of silence”).In the case of […]

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Neighborhood Meeting on Hawley Street Suspicious Fires – Dec 18, 7:30pm

We are relaying this announcement from the Ward 3 Neighborhood Association: WARD 3 NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATIONin conjunction with the Northampton Fire Department, Northampton Police Department, Massachusetts State Fire Marshall’s Office, Mayor Mary Clare Higgins and City Councilor Marilyn Richards and Councilor Elect Bob Reckman invite you to aNEIGHBORHOOD MEETINGTuesday, December 18th7:30 PMHAMPSHIRE EDUCATION COLLABORATIVE (HEC)CONFERENCE ROOM97 HAWLEY […]

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Energy Intensity Less in Single-Family Homes Than High-Rises

An implicit assumption in many of the briefs for Smart Growth is that multi-unit dwellings are more resource-efficient than single-family homes. However, Department of Energy Tables show that this is not true, at least not on the basis of energy per square foot of living space. Table 8c. U.S. Residential Energy Intensity Using Weather-Adjusted Primary […]

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Smart Growth with Balance: The American Planning Association

In its advocacy of Smart Growth, the American Planning Association supports the principles of citizen participation, preservation of neighborhood character, respect for urban greenspace, and fairness. The APA’s Policy Guide on Smart Growth, adopted in 2002, defines Smart Growth as follows: Smart growth means using comprehensive planning to guide, design, develop, revitalize and build communities for all […]

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UMass Press: “Natural Land: Preserving and Funding Open Space”

The University of Massachusetts Press (Amherst) recently published Preserving and Enhancing Communities: A Guide for Citizens, Planners, and Policymakers, a timely addition to the Sustainable Northampton debate. The book generally supports Smart Growth concepts while it also underscores the value of urban open space. We focus on the latter in these excerpts from Chapter 10, “Natural Land: Preserving and Funding […]

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