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On my flight home from California last week, I took the photo above. It's not the greatest photo, but I captured the image to illustrate the edge of suburban sprawl in some place or other, I'm not sure where. Reviewing it later, one of the things that struck me is that the development protruding onto the landscape in the photo is actually relatively high-density, as single-family residential development goes. Those are small lots, and my very wild guess is that we could be looking at 15-20 homes per acre, enough to pass the density prerequisite of LEED for Neighborhood Development and maybe even earn a density point or two.

Density. For planners and urban designers helping to create transit-oriented developments (TODs), density is the crucial factor in achieving a critical mass for ridership and a mixed-use walkable environment that will entice people out of their cars. In many cases if planners can't reach that threshold of density than transit is the baby that gets thrown out with the bath water.

But the question remains: How exactly - in what ways and through which channels - does density make our cities more productive? That's where a recent study published in the Journal of Regional Science breaks new ground. Conducted by economists Jaison Abel of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Ishita Dey of the University of Georgia, and Todd Gabe of the University of Maine, the study provides new evidence of the relationships between density, human capital, and urban productivity. It uses detailed statistical models to gauge more precisely the effects of density and human capital, separately and together, on productivity of more than 350 metro areas.

Getting the right city density - generally expressed in the US as people per square mile or homes per acre - to support sustainable and pleasant living is one of the trickiest problems we face as we address the future of our communities. The typically low densities of suburban sprawl built in the last half of the 20th century, despite their popularity at the time with a considerable share of the market, have been shown by a voluminous body of research to produce unsustainable rates of driving, carbon emissions, pollution. stormwater runoff, and adverse health impacts.

LIVING AT DENSITY: VOICES OF HONG KONG RESIDENTS

Research of Shlomo Angel at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Comprehensive Atlas on Urban Expansion and Densities 1800-now. useful.

Expansion / Densification

With its sparkling harbour, enticing beaches and a climate to die for, Sydney is regularly rated as one of world's top ten most liveable cities. But from Friday the state government of New South Wales will pay residents A$7,000 (£4,500) to leave.

http://www.city-journal.org/2012/22_1_environmentalism.html Get Dense by Robert Bryce

The first time I heard the term 'historic compromise' used with respect to parking policy in Zurich, I was taken aback by the grandiosity of the term. But as I learned, this term is more than apt in light of the contentious battles that ended in 1996 with a brokered agreement over parking. Even in a city known for its progressive transportation policies, a 'historic compromise' was needed to reverse the corrosive effect that parking was having on the city.