City Planning

While everyone, everywhere is conceding the failure of suburban fringe development— the type that shrugs off transit and walkability— something is actually being done about it in Salt Lake City, of all places. The region is piloting a joint project of HUD and the USDOT that capitalizes on the newly resuscitated mantras of mixed-use development and intermodal transportation to retrofit poorly designed communities and build new, more durable ones. Says Shaun Donovan, Secretary of HUD, "The ghost towns of the housing bust are places that lack transportation options, that aren't walkable. The average family spends 52 cents of every dollar they earn on housing and transportation combined, so the biggest opportunity is in development around transportation." Salt Lake City is ground zero for the program because its Mormon- and tycoon-financed developers don't need traditional lenders to bankroll projects— a standard model that often stands in the way of experimentation, particularly of the dense, mixed-use kind. [Business Week]