It’s Not So Dumb to Be Dense
With the price of gas, any thoughts of a leisurely Sunday drive go out the car window. Who can afford mileage without purpose?
Forget going downtown to see what’s up, too. It’s a long way away. A round-trip costs $10!
Comes now a Wall Street Journal headline that sums it up:
With Gas Over $4, Cities Explore
Whether It’s Smart to Be Dense
The story is about Sacramento, Calif., where city planning is attempting to inspire clustered development of housing and jobs to cut down on commuter time, traffic jams, energy use and pollution. Instead of a downtown core with dependent suburbs radiating outward, there’ll be lots of mini-downtowns all over an urban area. Lots of pockets of dense development is thought to be better than one big, highly developed downtown and lots of spacious housing all around it.
It’s plenty controversial: the rule of thumb out there is to have an average of 10 housing units per acre. Ouch! We live on three! The idea also is to offer streetcar systems and bike paths sufficient to make individual cars unnecessary. Yow! Don’t want to go there, and doubt many other Americans would, either.
But the idea is to cut down on the sprawling suburbs, encourage the use of bicycles and public transit, and congregate office parks, shops and restaurants near neighborhoods. Saving time and money, and helping the environment: maybe going denser isn’t so dumb.
Forget going downtown to see what’s up, too. It’s a long way away. A round-trip costs $10!
Comes now a Wall Street Journal headline that sums it up:
With Gas Over $4, Cities Explore
Whether It’s Smart to Be Dense
The story is about Sacramento, Calif., where city planning is attempting to inspire clustered development of housing and jobs to cut down on commuter time, traffic jams, energy use and pollution. Instead of a downtown core with dependent suburbs radiating outward, there’ll be lots of mini-downtowns all over an urban area. Lots of pockets of dense development is thought to be better than one big, highly developed downtown and lots of spacious housing all around it.
It’s plenty controversial: the rule of thumb out there is to have an average of 10 housing units per acre. Ouch! We live on three! The idea also is to offer streetcar systems and bike paths sufficient to make individual cars unnecessary. Yow! Don’t want to go there, and doubt many other Americans would, either.
But the idea is to cut down on the sprawling suburbs, encourage the use of bicycles and public transit, and congregate office parks, shops and restaurants near neighborhoods. Saving time and money, and helping the environment: maybe going denser isn’t so dumb.
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PRAYER REQUEST: Saw the engagement picture of a dear friend of our daughter’s in the paper yesterday. Lord, bless Jenny and Chris, who love You very much. Be in that engagement and marriage, as long as they both shall live! (Ephesians 5:31)
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