Community
Americans want to live in vibrant, accessible, and safe neighborhoods.
In the face of high gas bills and a slumping housing market across suburban and exurban communities, Americans are increasingly looking for homes in denser communities where they can board a train to work, hop on a bus to the movies, and walk down the street to the grocery store. In an Octboer 2007 poll, nearly 90 percent of Americans said that they believe new communities should be designed so we can walk more and drive less, and that public transportation should be improved and accessible.
(Source: Smart Growth American and National Association of Realtors, “Growth and Transportation Survey,” October 2007. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/narsgareport2007.html)
Without a transportation that responds to the shifting demands of our nation and helps create affordable, transit-oriented communities, the American people will struggle to find they types of places they want to live in.
Our citizens are voting with their feet – and our local, federal, and state governments need to listen. We need to encourage development around transit stations through economic incentives, plan communities so residents feel comfortable walking and biking, and give Americans a reason to be proud of the public transportation systems in their cities and towns.
Stats:
83 percent of Americans say they would approve of building walkable communities so people can use their car less as a way of reducing energy use. (Source: Smart Growth American and National Association of Realtors, “Growth and Transportation Survey,” October 2007. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/narsgareport2007.html)
Three-fourths of Americans believe improving public transportation and developing communities where people don’t have to drive as much will do more to cure traffic than building roads. (Source: Smart Growth American and National Association of Realtors, “Growth and Transportation Survey,” October 2007. http://www.smartgrowthamerica.org/narsgareport2007.html)
“In a national survey of almost 1,000 Coldwell Bankers in June, 93 percent said rising gas and oil prices were “a concern to their clients,” and 78 percent said higher fuel costs are increasing their clients’ interest in urban living. (Rhodes, Elizabeth “Will Gas Prices Drive Homebuyers Away from the Suburbs?” The Seattle Times, July 7, 2008.)
