Streetsblog Network

On Tuesday, we wrote about the Defense Department’s new rules for the design of their bases and installations. These rules make smart growth the law of the land on hundreds of vast military installations in the U.S. and abroad. There’s more to the story: In this post we examine how a smart growth development model will bring wide-ranging benefits to the defense complex.

Jonathan Maus at Bike Portland is having a contemplative moment. In rapid succession over the last few days, he's seen so much evidence of the damage that traffic inflicts: a seriously injured cyclist in Portland, a new study linking exhaust inhalation to autism, the death of journalist Michael Hastings, who was killed in a Los Angeles car crash. The list goes on.

They say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem. But the people who shape the future of greater Detroit -- despite all the urban flight, sprawl, and decline they've seen -- just can't seem to acknowledge that they have an addiction to big highway projects. On the agenda Thursday for the regional planning commission, the Southeast Michigan Council of Governments, are two highway expansion plans that will cost an astounding $4 billion combined.

The anecdote we're about to relay happened in St. Louis County, but it could have occurred in almost any community between New York and Portland. Alex Ihnen at NextSTL caught local transportation officials admitting what generally goes unspoken:

Miami's Overtown neighborhood was once known as "the Harlem of the South." In this historic black neighborhood, legends like Nat King Cole and Billie Holiday would play to big crowds late into the night.

Distracted driving killed 3,331 people on American streets in 2011, yet car manufacturers continue to outdo each other to add more infotainment distractions in their vehicles. These systems are expected to increase five-fold by 2018, according to AAA. Carmakers seek to show their commitment to safety by making their distractions – onboard dinner reservation apps and social media, for example – hands-free. But a growing body of research indicates that there is no safe way to combine driving with tasks like dictating email or text messages.

Does your city have a parking crater problem? If so, it's probably time for an ordinance prohibiting property owners from demolishing buildings and turning them into parking lots.

The long legal ordeal is finally over for Raquel Nelson, the mother who faced three years in prison after her four-year-old son was killed by an impaired driver in suburban Atlanta.

Gary Howe has been seeing things differently since he suffered a foot injury when he slipped on an icy patch of broken sidewalk in his hometown of Traverse City, Michigan, this winter.