Streetsblog Network

A lot of the time, neighborhood-level development fights play out like this story from Arlington, Virginia: Miles Grant at Network blog The Green Miles writes that this transit-accessible D.C. suburb recently saw the opening of 122 units of new affordable housing, which drew 3,600 applications. But Grant points out that there would be more affordable housing units to go around if neighbors hadn't objected to the original 192 units, citing fears about traffic and building height.

It's easy to take shots at "the suburbs," a catchall term that evokes big box stores, fields of parking lots, and social exclusion. But suburbs don't have to be designed around driving, writes David Levinson at Streets.mn. Many of these places just had the misfortune to be developed at a time when awful planning practices were ascendant:

How much exposure to advertising should fare-paying transit users be expected to tolerate? Is a relatively minor fiscal benefit worth slapping ads on every bus, bus stop, subway platform and train car? Where does it end?

With dispatches from North America, Europe, and Asia, today's Network offerings have a decidedly international flavor.

The state of Oregon is testing a new type of public-private partnership in Portland, where advocates and electeds want to transform a parcel of land into a new park and greenway.

In August, 20-year-old college student Henry Schmidt was struck and seriously injured by a driver while walking his bike on a Portland street. The motorist reportedly fled the scene, and contacted authorities only after police, acting on an anonymous tip, found her car, which she had taken to a body shop outside of town.

Aaron Renn at the Urbanophile has been looking at the devastation wrought on different cities by highways. And he's uncovered a pretty dramatic example in these pre- and post-highway photos of Cincinnati's West End.

There's been some talk recently in Seattle about reorganizing the city's transit system to improve efficiency. But almost immediately, strong objections emerged to eliminating lesser-used routes that some people depend on.

What makes a great walking city? Wide sidewalks with lots of street life? Low volumes of traffic? Lively pedestrian plazas? Hop-on, hop-off transit?