Traffic Delays Size isn’t everything. In large cities where growth was planned around transportation investments like trains and subways, traffic delays are a fraction of those experienced by smaller cities where growth has largely followed the automobile. Case in point: […]
Author Archive
Planning Trumps Size When It Comes To Traffic
Thursday, May 31st, 2001Increasing Mom’s Choice of Where To Live
Friday, May 11th, 2001Mothers In New Jersey Hallmark alone offers a choice of 2,375 different Mother Day card designs this year. Yet whether they are seniors or new to motherhood, New Jersey’s mothers (and their families) face a shrinking choice of where to […]
New Jersey’s “Principal Cities” Now Include Suburbs
Wednesday, March 14th, 2001The Metro “A” List New Jersey’s “principal cities” for the new decade will include the lesser-known cities of Vineland, Millville, Bridgeton and Pleasantville, when last week’s 2000 Census population figures are subjected to new federal standards for naming major metropolitan […]
Development Style Can Reduce Road Costs
Tuesday, February 13th, 2001Road Costs and New Development Laying a local, two-lane road typically costs $1 million a mile. The cost per resident can be reduced dramatically if plans for new roads are coordinated with plans for more compact development – even when […]
Where Do We Go From Here?
Friday, December 22nd, 200050 Years Ago in New Jersey In 1950, we munched Sugar Pops and Ball-O-Fire gumballs for the first time. Most of us (58 percent) lived in places with urban or small town densities where you could walk to stores, movies […]
NJ’s Dirty Secret – Not Enough Housing Affordable To NJ’s Workers
Friday, December 8th, 2000Spillover Sprawl The newest frontier of New Jersey suburbanization is actually in northeastern Pennsylvania. The population of Monroe County, Pa. grew by 34 percent in the past decade; Pike County, Pa. grew by a whopping 48 percent. New Jersey’s fastest […]
New Housing
Monday, November 27th, 2000Only a third of all New Jersey households are families with children under 18, making only one in three households a primary market for new single-family homes (per 1990 census). Yet from 1990 to 1999, 83 percent of all building […]
The Maryland Approach
Wednesday, November 8th, 2000Since 1975, Montgomery County Maryland has required that at least 15 percent of all new homes in any new development of 50 or more homes be affordable to moderate- and low-income families. Creating mixed-income neighborhoods in such modest proportions has […]
The Minnesota Approach
Monday, October 23rd, 2000The drawbacks of new business development — from heavier traffic to lost open space — are often shared by surrounding communities. Minnesota requires its communities to also share the tax benefits. When a business moves to a new community in […]
The Oregon Approach
Thursday, October 5th, 2000Oregon has statewide zoning for farmland (16.4 million acres) and private forest land (8.7 million acres). This zoning protects about 40,000 square miles from development – an area about the size of Indiana. New Jersey has no farm or forest […]