Suburbia

In the U.S., regional rail is mostly good for one type of trip: the commute. But in Paris, regional rail is oriented toward all types of trips, and people ride throughout the day, not just at rush hour. One key to success is running frequent, predictable service all day long.

What tenants want in an office building is changing, and the old model of the isolated suburban office park is going the way of the fax machine. That's according to a new report from Newmark, Grubb, Knight and Frank [PDF], one of the largest commercial real estate firms in the world.

Two or three decades ago, the standard criteria for choosing an office location was often, "Where does the boss live?” says land use strategist Christopher Leinberger. And the boss inevitably lived in a car-oriented suburb.

Four years ago, White Flint, a neighborhood of North Bethesda, Maryland, most known for its shopping mall, caught the attention of urbanists around the nation with a proposal to reimagine car-oriented suburban streets as a walkable, mixed-use, transit-oriented neighborhood. Montgomery County adopted a plan for the town that would narrow its wide arterial roadways and make them safe and accommodating for transit riders, bicyclists, and pedestrians. It was hailed as a model for other suburbs around the nation looking to become less sprawling and more walkable.

This post is part of a series featuring stories and research that will be presented at the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference September 8-11 in Pittsburgh.

To get the economy humming again, America's metro regions need to build more walkable places, according to a new report from a coalition of real estate developers.

Americans are increasingly sorted along ideological lines. There is less diversity of opinion among the people we associate with, in the media we consume, and even where we want to live. That's according to a new report from Pew Research Center studying political polarization in the United States.

William H. Frey is an internationally regarded demographer and senior fellow with the Brookings Institution. This article was originally posted by the Brookings Institution.

As the downside of sprawling development becomes better understood, some developers are getting better at greenwashing sprawl.