Lockerbie Square, Indianapolis

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A pretty good example (at least for the States) of a pleasant single-family residential neighborhood with narrow-ish streets. Cut down the width by about 5-10 or so and it'd look like a Japanese neighborhood. The trees completely covering the streets are nice too.

New from Nathan Lewis

Life Without Cars 2014

Once a year, we take a little time to imagine Life Without Cars. Many people live without cars today, and also without bicycles (at least for daily transport use), mostly in urban areas with good public transportation. In the developing world also, most people don't own cars, and live in urban areas with good public transportation. Before 1900, nobody used cars. ...

Continue reading at the link!

A short opinion piece from Scotland that you should read

Car-free city centres a must by Norman Armstrong

"REPORTS in The Herald as I write (November 20) tragically illustrate points I made (Letters, November 15), that our addiction to oil and cars constitutes the overwhelming problem facing western society, a problem disproportionally concentrated in Glasgow."

Required reading for today!

Here's an article that's a must-read for anyone interested in building better places in our communities. Density is not the answer, Place to Non-Place ratio is.

Places and Non-Places

A new development built in the traditional style!

 photo found here

Sure, it's located in the midst of the sprawliness of outer Santa Barbara, but it's a start! Las Palmas Viejas is a small development of several "villas" off a highway west of downtown Santa Barbara. The designers involved in this project did a fine job incorporating garage doors & an even better job at the design of the "street" (which is effectively a cul-de-sac). Notice how there is no separation of sidewalk and roadbed. A change in paving stone colour does the same job while refusing to distinguish clearly separate spaces for cars and walkers, thus calming traffic.

Even at such a small scale, it's encouraging to see developers willing to try this type of project instead of typical suburban housing or superblock "townhomes."