RoadsideOnline

In answer to the question posed by the author, I would remind him of what the retail dreadnaught has already done to countless other small American manufacturers who opted to sell to them. Walmart's modus operandi is to get the product in the pipeline and then drive its own purchase price down to where it become completely unprofitable. Manufacturer goes bust, and Walmart seeks new source from China. It remains to be seen if this pattern will repeat itself with local agriculture.

Will Walmart, not Whole Foods, save the small farm and make America healthy?

By Corby Kummer

BUY MY FOOD at Walmart? No thanks. Until recently, I had been to exactly one Walmart in my life, at the insistence of a friend I was visiting in Natchez, Mississippi, about 10 years ago. It was one of the sights, she said. Up and down the aisles we went, properly impressed by the endless rows and endless abundance. Not the produce section. I saw rows of prepackaged, plastic-trapped fruits and vegetables. I would never think of shopping there.

Not even if I could get environmentally correct food. Walmart’s move into organics was then getting under way, but it just seemed cynical—a way to grab market share while driving small stores and farmers out of business. Then, last year, the market for organic milk started to go down along with the economy, and dairy farmers in Vermont and other states, who had made big investments in organic certification, began losing contracts and selling their farms. A guaranteed large buyer of organic milk began to look more attractive. And friends started telling me I needed to look seriously at Walmart’s efforts to sell sustainably raised food.

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We found this story thanks to the wonderful blog "Free Range Kids" by Lenore Skenazy, which advocates letting kids be kids, where it's okay to make mistakes and pick up a few bumps and bruises along the way. Read more of her blog here.

Dropping kids off here? Better lace your shoes up

Kristin Rushowy

Yes, it was built with a kiss 'n ride lane. No, the school doesn't want parents to use it.

In fact, P.L. Robertson elementary in Milton, which opened this week, has been designated a "walking-only school," where students will be strongly encouraged to use their feet – or bikes or any other active way – to get there.

It is part of a broader initiative at the Halton District School Board to stop traffic jams around schools and get students moving.

Gridlock in the parking lot and surrounding streets is an all-too common problem for schools in the Greater Toronto Area, thanks to parents who insist on driving their children, even if they don't live all that far away.

Read the rest here...

Building mixed-used, transit friendly communities is still a mixed bag in terms of getting people off of the auto habit. However after 70 years of conditioning Americans to use their cars for just about every trip, change won't happen overnight. We still believe in Oregon's efforts in this regard. This story comes from the Portland Oregonian.

By Dylan Rivera, The Oregonian

HILLSBORO – Orenco Station, the award winning neighborhood touted as an ideal of mass-transit oriented New Urbanism, has failed to persuade a majority of its residents to use mass transit to get to work.

About two out of three Orenco residents drive to work in cars, slightly less than some other suburbs but hardly the car-free utopia many idealists expect of the transit-oriented area. Even as the neighborhood has grown closer, block by block, to the MAX light rail station named for it, the use of cars for work trips remains relatively high.

Offsetting that car-reliance, however, is a finding that Orenco residents also walk to shopping and use mass transit for nonwork trips – to the zoo or symphony, for example – at rates that beat other suburban communities.

Still, the option to commute by car is striking.

Read the rest of the story here.

This article comes by way of the Salt Lake Tribune and makes a good case for getting banks on board with the whole "walkable communities" bandwagon. Bankers are by nature not the most creative types, seeking to stick with the tried and true. In my experience, every development in search of financing I've ever had the privilege of reviewing always seems to put parking at the top of the priority list. This has to change.

By Derek P. Jensen

The Salt Lake Tribune

Salt Lake City's new-urbanism epiphany -- fervently backed by Mayor Ralph Becker and the City Council -- appears to be catching static from an unlikely source.

Transit-oriented development isn't stymied by outdated zoning, unwilling developers or a lack of space. It turns out, banks, wedded to old-fashioned lending standards that stress parking, may pose the biggest blockade by denying financing.

The reason: Lenders operate from a tried-and-true principle that maintains more parking means less risk and a higher return on their investment. But ditching cars is the whole point of urban developers looking to create 24-hour live, work and play environments that hug light-rail hubs.

Take the capital's gateway district, which soon could be further revived by a North Temple TRAX train, a new viaduct and millions in streetscape upgrades. City leaders envision a walkable, vibrant mix of housing, retail, restaurants and offices that one day will bridge the FrontRunner hub and a new North Temple transit station along downtown's western rim.

But commercial investors, including one with a $100 million blueprint, complain banks cannot grasp the concept and instead slam their doors.

Read the rest of the story here.

This article comes from EcoHome Magazine. As the New Urbanist movement becomes more mainstream, its methods have come under greater scrutiny. Happily, it's passing the muster of planners and homeowners alike.

By: Teresa Burney

New urbanists have long condemned the cul-de-sac community and championed high-density, multiple use, walkable neighborhoods as an answer to heavy automobile dependence, sedentary lifestyles, and social isolation.

However, until now, they didn’t have any empirical evidence to prove their assertions. But a recent study by sociology professor Bruce Podobnik of Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Ore., suggests that new urbanists might be right in two out of the three cases.

Residents surveyed in the new urbanist community Orenco Station in Hillsboro, Ore., said their community is friendlier and offers more of a sense of community than other places they have lived, that they walk more often to the store, and occasionally use public transportation.

Read the whole article here.