Crazy Growth!

The Dallas Business Journal reported this week that the DFW metro area is the fastest growing in the nation (Lance Murray, "Best of the Blog," page 12; June 1-7, 2012). 

Our area gains a new resident every four minutes and ten seconds! 

Between July 1, 2010 and the July 1, 2011, the area saw 126,037 new residents move in.  This means that 345.3 persons each day move into the DFW area. 

To find a searchable database of population growth in metro areas you might want to check out this site.

So, what does this reality mean to low-income families?  To the extremely poor?  What could it mean to non-profit organizations?

Walking Cities

What would city life be like if we could actually walk to most of the places we needed to visit during the day?  What if urban design moved in a direction that minimized the need for automobiles?  What if we actually found new and effective ways to really know each other again, all due to the manner in which our lived environments were designed and built?  What if renewed communities were built with this sort of human intentionality? 

Working downtown forces these questions on me.  How can I take the rail more often?  How about my bike?  Who are my neighbors out there on the street? 

Pursue these ideas visually with a simple click here. 

Cool and hope-filled visions! 

How about a one state country. . .ready for density?

Talk about density and urban planning!

Since I'm not sure everyone can read the text, here's what it says from left to right across the page after this header line:

There are about 300,000,000 of us in the USA, spread out over 3,794,101 sq miles. . .

But let's say we all wanted to live in 1 sate together, comfortably.

Using the density of Brooklyn, NY as an example: at about 35,000 people to a square mile. . .

What state wold we all fit into?

In other words if we wanted to we could all move into and live in an area the size of New Hampshire; the 5th smallest US state (8,968 sq miles) with extra room for more parks. (because Brooklyn cold use more)

And if the area were square, it would be about 100 miles wide. You could ride a bike to the other side for the "country" in a day. Our "green belt" would be the rest of the USA. Not only would we all have access to mass transit and live in spaces with small footprints, the need for Air travel would be greatly reduced. You'd only fly when leaving the country. WE'D ALL BE NEIGHBORS.

What do you think? Any urban planners out there?