Newsroom

May 31, 2011

City rankings are wildly abundant and as we’ve written before many of them have questionable criteria at best. Although there’s no shortage of “most livable cities” indexes there is little variation among most of them (the top listings often going to mid-sized cities in Canada Australia and Scandinavia) the common element frequently missing is the megacity. Though they can be some of the most sustainable places to live (thanks to dense land use and high transit usage) megacities are hard to​

May 26, 2011

Media portrayal is powerful. In the same way that Friends and Sex and the City made the vibrancy and diversity of big city life appealing to a generation of young people raised in far-out and often monochromatic suburbs NYPB Blue Law & Order and countless other shows and movies have made cities appear as the hubs of crime in America. That portrayal is out-dated argues Richard Florida in a piece for the Atlantic .

May 25, 2011

This Streetsfilms project (video below) demonstrates how recent Complete Streets projects in New York City have been able to increase the safety modal diversity and overall use of transportation corridors. ​

May 24, 2011

Obesity. Air pollution. Traffic congestion. Health disparities. All of these problems can be reduced by one thing: better land-use planning. We’re not simply talking about a matter of aesthetics. A recent article in The Globe and Mail discusses a study showing quite starkly evidence of a “new crisis of cities” – the negative health effects of bad planning and the disparities they create:

May 23, 2011

We harp on this subject because it’s important. And thankfully we’re not alone in doing so. As funding sources like the gas tax become increasingly insufficient for funding transportation folks are realizing that something needs to has to change. The devil’s in the details of course.

May 20, 2011

11,000 commuters took to the streets on two wheels today, celebrating Bike to Work Day 2011. The impressive turn-out was the largest in the regional event’s history and helped spread the message of finding alternatives to driving in single-occupancy vehicles. Coordinated by Commuter Connections and the Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA), the event was attended by dozens of state, local, and federal dignitaries and elected officials who spoke to crowds of cyclists at pit stop celebratio​

May 19, 2011

Taxes are designed to two things: 1) to raise revenues to fund the government and/or to 2) incentivize a desired change in behavior. Part one is obvious. The government provides services such as public education or national defense that costs money and it collects taxes to cover those costs. That’s fairly straight forward. Of course it’s the politics – the what and how much government does – that gets tricky but that’s another topic.

May 18, 2011

In anticipation of Bike to Work Day this Friday May 20 we’re devoting this post to a discussion on the growth of bicycling in the District and the region.

May 17, 2011

To kick-off Foster Parent Appreciation Month, celebrated every May, nine outstanding foster families from around metropolitan Washington were honored at Nationals Park on April 30, 2011. For their exceptional job caring for abused and neglected children in our region at a moment’s notice, these nine families have been given the auspicious title of “Foster Family of the Year.”

May 17, 2011

It’s been a busy day but we still wanted to get in a short post and share with you an article we read recently to get your reaction