"The roots of sprawl"

[Grant Rimbey]

Here's my latest Creative Loafing piece, there's an interesting video at the end:

"The roots of sprawl"

Grant

[Taylor Ralph]

In my book you are 2 for 2 in your CL articles. Enjoyed the videos and also tried to explore some of the links inside the text. Do you link everything up, or does CL give you a hand with that? Thanks for sharing.

[Grant Rimbey]

Great, thanks for the feedback! I have to hyperlink everything, I went a little link crazy in that last piece.

[Adam Fritz]

nice job again grant... keep them coming!

[Grant Rimbey]

Thanks Adam.

[Adam Fritz]

ok... sums it all up in one parpagraph! good article Grant! we have our work cut out for us and it will not be an easy road to come back to the core...

The term “sprawl” was coined in 1956 and is defined as unplanned greenfield (undeveloped land) development on the periphery of urban areas that is generally single-use, single-story, low density, inexpensive to build, and requires little knowledge or expertise to create. Sprawl gobbles up our farmlands and woodlands while increasing dependency on fossil fuel, fosters obesity because you have to drive everywhere, diminishes the natural environment, decreases the feasibility of mass transit, all while failing to create a “sense of place” or build community.

[Grant Rimbey]

I know, the allure of sprawl, "cheap", will be tough to beat. You and I know that good design doesn't always mean expensive, but 99% of the US populace thinks it does, so they settle for sh** because they don't think they can afford better. The trick is to make mixed-use, pedestrian friendly infill affordable, not elitist, yet with some good design, kind of like Ikea (and not Wall-Mart).

Did you know that Ikea sells pre-fab housing at their stores in Europe?