The Congress for New Urbanism recently held a competition to explain just what the connection is between urban planning and the environment--and if you're fuzzy on the issue, you need to watch the winning video, created by John Paget:
Sobering stuff, which makes a lot of sense: Wouldn't it be great to replace car commutes with walkable town centers? But what the video elides is that many cities actually makes this sort of development illegal, with zoning regulations that actively discourage "mixed use" planning. And many sprawling cities don't have any control over their own borders--developers frequently find it cheaper to simply move further out, rather that work within existing planning frameworks.
Please let me know what you think.
