and transit work. Sustainable shelter patterns may be the most important public policy is- sue of our time, and progressive leaders know it. The mayor of Portland, Ore., for example, just announced that he wants to see more “20-minute neighborhoods,” where residents don’t need cars to get around. Other munici- palities from Los Angeles to Boston have been slammed with sky-high infrastructure costs. They’re finding it too expensive to maintain the sprawling road, water, and sewer net- works made possible by the cheap oil and lax


A 34 GreenBuilder July > August 2010


cademic research often seems discon- nected and irrele- vant to modern life. Not so the recent ivory tower interest in what makes cit- ies, neighborhoods,


environmental standards of the past. Ironically, the more we learn about the


problems with our current transportation systems, the more we find ourselves looking backward for solutions, to turn-of-the-century communities where the automobile was a novelty. Architects such as Peter Calthorpe www.calthorpe.com and Andres Duany www.dpz.com have been ahead of this curve for years, with their innovative (and continu- ing) work with new urbanism and walkable neighborhoods. But Duany acknowledges that some of the early planned communities— such as Seaside and Celebration—didn’t work out quite as planned. Instead of becoming models for more mainstream resurgence of mixed-income, pedestrian-friendly neigh- borhoods, they became victims of their own success—demographic niche communities affordable only to an elite few.


CENTRAL PLATTE Denver’s redesign of its Central Platte Valley District is considered one of the best-thought-out transit-oriented com- munities in the nation. It includes thousands of housing units and numerous pedes- trian bridges to help residents get around on foot.


www.greenbuildermag.com


Photos: 21stCenturyUrbanSolutions (blog); Payton Chung


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