05 March 2011

Auto Poverty

Three interesting blog/articles:

First, Steve Mouzon, the author of a blog called The Original Green has two good posts up about called automobile poverty. The first post is about the financial costs of driving, but the second post about the health of walking is even better, because he posted a picture of himself before and after he moved to a walkable neighborhood. Pretty impressive.

Secondly, I stumbled upon this interesting graphic, created by Patrick Kennedy at his blog about living car free in Dallas:
Lively City vs Empty (click to enlarge)...


Thirdly:
An article here about how some cities are removing highways:

Removal of aging highways is a strategy some cities are using to try to boost their downtown districts.

In New Haven, Conn., a mistake of the past – one that displaced hundreds, razed a neighborhood, and physically divided a city – is finally set to be rectified: A highway is going to be demolished.

...cities across the United States look to erase some of the damage from urban highway construction of the 1950s and '60s – tearing up or replacing the roadways and attempting to restitch bulldozed neighborhoods.

"For people who live and work around [urban highways], they always had huge negative side effects: They broke up the urban fabric, were noisy, and divided cities,"...

....Two things are driving these extreme make-overs. One is the simple fact that many highways built in the postwar years are nearing the end of their useful lives,... The other, is a growing faith that urban centers, including some that have been long neglected, have development potential.

1 comment:

WestEnder said...

I'm an aficionado of good graphs & charts and I have to tip my hat to this one. Nice.