Low density is certainly one of the dysfunctions of the dominant development pattern since 1950, but it is not the only one. Two other factors — segregation of destination types and a lack of connectivity in the local street network — also contrive to force people into their cars for most daily activities, even in neighborhoods with high housing density.
Author Archive
Density and Sprawl Are Not Mutually Exclusive
Wednesday, August 24th, 2011City-Loving Millennials: Are They Born That Way?
Thursday, July 28th, 2011The “why” of Millennials’ counter-reaction to the suburban cul-de-sacs and office parks of their parents’ generation is something the experts tend not to explore very deeply, but perhaps we can legitimately point to their change in attitude as being a direct and tangible result of education and advocacy efforts.
Exclusionary Zoning, Sprawl on the Rise
Thursday, July 21st, 2011A new study by Rowan University’s Geospatial Research Laboratory finds that municipal zoning in New Jersey has resulted in a land-use pattern that has grown substantially more exclusionary and more sprawling over the last two decades.
The Mall as Private City
Wednesday, June 29th, 2011Illuminated by two more decades of hindsight into the evolution of the retail sector, the mall does share some previously under-appreciated similarities with the old downtown that it nearly killed off.
Metropark, and the Limits of Brookings’ Transit Accessibility Study
Monday, June 13th, 2011Brookings’ jobs-accessibility study would be more valuable if it measured how accessible transit is to workers, not just to their jobs.
Is Jersey City a Suburb? Joel Kotkin Thinks So.
Thursday, March 3rd, 2011For much of the past decade, there has been a constant media drumbeat about the “return to the cities.” Urban real estate interests, environmentalists and planners have widely promoted this idea.
Transit-Accessible Towns In New Jersey Are More Recession-Resistant
Thursday, February 24th, 2011image source: world.nycsubway.org
There are 140 New Jersey municipalities that host at least one rail transit station, including commuter rail (NJ Transit or SEPTA), light rail (Hudson-Bergen, River Line and Newark City Subway) and the PATH and PATCO systems.
These rail-transit municipalities accounted for 23.9 percent of all building permits issued statewide in the 1990s […]
When it Comes to State Subsidies, Not All Transit Hubs are Equal
Thursday, February 17th, 2011Does it make sense to subsidize a company to move offices from the vicinity of one New Jersey train station to another? All other things being equal, no, it doesn’t.
College Students as a Leading Indicator of Diversity
Monday, January 31st, 2011The Fall 2010 issue of Rutgers Magazine featured this very interesting half-page item listing the 10 most common surnames among the Rutgers student body in 2009 and in 1990, showing how the demographic composition of the student body has changed over nearly 20 years.
“Smart Growth” vs. “Growth Management”
Thursday, January 6th, 2011Google Labs has developed a tool it calls the Book NgramViewer, which allows a user to search Google’s book archives over a specified time period for the appearance of specific words or phrases. Among other things, this tool can be used to compare the frequency of use of two terms that have […]
