Survey: New Urbanist Community Results in More Walking, Interaction

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Written by Roadside Wire

This article comes from EcoHome Magazine. As the New Urbanist movement becomes more mainstream, its methods have come under greater scrutiny. Happily, it's passing the muster of planners and homeowners alike.

By: Teresa Burney

New urbanists have long condemned the cul-de-sac community and championed high-density, multiple use, walkable neighborhoods as an answer to heavy automobile dependence, sedentary lifestyles, and social isolation.

However, until now, they didn’t have any empirical evidence to prove their assertions. But a recent study by sociology professor Bruce Podobnik of Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., suggests that new urbanists might be right in two out of the three cases.

Residents surveyed in the new urbanist community Orenco Station in Hillsboro, Ore., said their community is friendlier and offers more of a sense of community than other places they have lived, that they walk more often to the store, and occasionally use public transportation.

Read the whole article here.

Highway 99 - (A Window to the West's Recent History)

Written by Al Sollinger

Highway 99, was the main north–south highway of "The West" until 1964. Beginning in Calexico, California at the Baja California, Mexico at the U.S. ...

Written on 03 February 2012
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This Old Building

Written by Teri Dunn Chace

Here in Upstate New York, there are a lot of (potentially) beautiful old Main Streets, lined mostly or completely with handsome old brick buildings fr...

Written on 02 February 2012
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Draper Mountain Wayside, US 11 S of Pulaski VA

Written by Tom Hoffman

Here are two views of another of Virginia's "Waysides," which once served motorists the way "rest areas" do now on the interstates. Ho...

Written on 28 January 2012
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"The Artist" and "The Theatre"

Written by Sue Clarendon

“The Artist” is a charming movie, deserving of all the Golden Globes awards it received, and then some. (Watching that otherwise uninspired awar...

Written on 23 January 2012
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Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest, Robbinsville NC

Written by Tom Hoffman

This is a memorial plaque to Joyce Kilmer, famous for the poem "Trees." The name is a pseudonym, and in fact Joyce Kilmer was a man. He died in action...

Written on 28 December 2011
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