What would it feel like to commute in Los Angeles on a bike? Turns out, while major thoroughfares are jammed with cars, the back streets are blissfully quiet.

The East New York Farms! farmers’ market in Brooklyn was once an overgrown lot, but now sees over 600 customers on weekends perusing the variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. The market serves a population where the rate of obesity is thirty percent and diabetes is fifteen percent - both almost double the city average. Almost half do not graduate high school, and over a third live below the poverty level. By selling food and educating its customers, the market’s organizers hope to improve the health of this struggling neighborhood. They also see themselves forging a sense of community accomplishment.

Donald Schmitt discusses the cost of sprawl, two-way streets, and the role citizens play in ensuring good architecture.

“The huge cinder-block stores that have defined suburbia for a generation are undergoing a facelift.

City planners in Charlotte and other towns are taking a stronger stand against big-box stores such as Wal-Mart and Lowe’s, responding to complaints about their monotonous facades and high vacancy rates.

In Charlotte, the two newest Wal-Marts — on Sardis Road North and Wilkinson Boulevard — look nothing like the chain’s standard gray-and-blue boxes behind a sea of parking. Instead, you’ll find brick walls, parking away from the street and architectural details such as awnings and faux windows.”

Evacuees from New Orleans, one of the country’s most dense and vibrant cities, find themselves isolated in apartment complexes without the history, community, and public transportation that they were used to.

New high-profile architects can add prestige to downtown Los Angeles, but at what cost to the skyline?

“The narrow, curvy and sometimes congested roads that wind through rural northern Baltimore County should be kept the way they are, according to a study to be released today by a Towson-based land preservation group.

Though creating wider, straighter roads might seem a logical response to increasing traffic volume, the transportation consultants hired by the Valleys Planning Council concluded that bigger roads only bring more cars traveling faster.

The Valleys Planning Council plans to lobby county officials to adopt the recommendations as formal rural roads design standards.”

The NJ Department of Transportation will introduce a new smart growth agenda called NJFIT, or Future in Transportation, at the New Jersey Smart Choices workshop on December 5. PPS is one of four organizations hosting the Smart Choices workshop series.

60 residents participated in a workshop to help decide what to do with an undeveloped area in Montgomery Township. PPS’s Elena Madison gave a presentation on the possibilities of the site, some of which included providing benches and movable seating, and creating a place for concerts or a farmers’ market.

Weekend farmers markets in Seattle’s University District and in West Seattle will operate during January and February this winter, an experiment to gauge consumer interest after a year of record sales.

Most farmers markets run from late spring to early fall, but many vendors have stretched the season by a few weeks. And business has been so impressive that many farmers and food vendors want to sell during cold, wet January and February and find out if there is enough consumer support to open every weekend year-round.