There are a lot of ideas that are being generated for ways to rectify the social / environmental / economic problems that we seem to have created through relying on sprawling suburbs as our mode of choice for urban development.   There is definitely a time and a place for blue-sky-solutioneering [ (c)2008 hotdogsladies] - but in order for useful / actual / real development to take place we also need to be realistic.

That is why I am so drawn to the Peoples Choice award winner from the recent ReBurbia contest that was intended to cast a new vision for these places.

While some entries called for massive moving-sidewalk style ‘carrousels’ in place of roads, or an elevated serpentine residential development above our streets, the Urban Sprawl Repair Kit actually started with the problem: we have used up too much space for too little. The result is often both wasteful and ugly.

Instead of taking a Hanna-Barbera line of thinking - the approach is much more simple and useful.

Let’s build some mixed use buildings on the giant setbacks that surround so many aesthetically unpleasing commercial sites.

Let’s reclaim some of the massive parking lots set to scale for H2 commuters.

Let’s be intentional about putting living next to working next to shopping next to socializing.

Check out the rest of the details - and other entries at http://www.re-burbia.com/