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A few weeks back, there was a bit of a stir (see this article for an example) over new US Census Bureau estimates suggesting that, after the urban resurgence of the 1990s, center-city populations in the US were once again on the decline.  For someone like me who’s convinced of the environmental and social benefits of city living, this didn’t seem like good news. But now, two Brookings Institution researchers...

This article in Sunday’s Washington Post, penned by New America Foundation fellow Joel Kotkin, is definitely thought provoking.  In the wake of terrorist attacks in London and New York, Kotkin argues that the single most important challenge facing modern cities is providing basic security to their citizens.  To wit… While modern cities are a long way from extinction, it’s only by acknowledging the primacy of security—and addressing it in the...

Editor’s Note: Dan Staley, a frequent commenter on the Scorecard blog, will contribute an occasional column on land use and quality of life from Buckley, Washington, a small town near Mt. Rainier where Dan serves as planning director. This is his first post. I bicycle a short 5-8 miles to work in Buckley every day, taking different routes through a beautiful pastoral landscape that is full of little surprises. For...

Here’s a bad idea. The state wants to widen Interstate-90 over Snoqualmie Pass. While they’re at it, they’re considering building a series of passageways for animals—maybe as many as 14—that would help wildlife move safely across the expanded freeway. It will cost $113 million. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important to design our cities and roads to accommodate the natural systems around us. Indeed, I think we have...

From the New Urban News comes this nugget: Researchers presented findings at the Congress for the New Urbanism annual conference that show substantial energy savings from higher-density urbanism – greater savings than can be achieved from the US government Energy Star program. As the chart on the left shows (if you can read it—sorry it’s so small), even small increases in density can yield substantial energy savings; increasing housing density...

People who move to the suburbs may think they’re fleeing the polluted air of the city.  Of course, there’s a tradeoff: by living in low-density suburbs, they spend more time in their cars. And as it turns out, the air inside your car may be just about the dirtiest you’ll breathe all day. Last year, researchers in Sydney, Australia released a study (pdf) that measured the levels of benzene (a...

Washington’s population growth appears to be picking up a bit of steam: the state added 88,600 new residents over the past year, according to the state Office of Financial Management (OFM). That was 20,000 more residents than the state added during the previous year. And compared with 2 years before, the pace of population growth increased even more, rising from .9 percent per year in 2002-2003, to 1.4 percent in...

No creature, beside humans, penetrates the Pacific Northwest as thoroughly as salmon. In a single short lifetime a salmon may inhabit pelagic and nearshore marine waters, freshwater streams, mountains, forests, deserts, cities, and farms. Their presence is perhaps the region’s defining characteristic. They are, therefore, the single best indicator of the Northwest’s ecological integrity. The health of salmon is a close proxy for how extensively we have eroded our natural...

Last week, I wrote a post detailing how much car crashes cost.  An alert reader asked some followup questions about how to reduce his risk: Does a decrease in vehicle-miles translate to a decrease in injuries? Am I relatively safer on my bike? On the bus? Here are some quick answers.  First:  the more you drive, the greater your chance of getting in a crash.  See, for example, this chart...

When shopping for food, how important is it to buy local?  This question isn’t rhetorical:  I no longer know quite what to think about this.  Obviously, transporting food long distances requires fossil fuels and creates air pollution, among other ills. So all else being equal, it’s better to buy local.  But how much better, I’m just not sure.  Studies such as this one (reported on here by the BBC, blogged...