New Herbanism (a.k.a. Comments on New Urbanism from a Recent Convert)

2010-09-08T14:48:00.002-05:00

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Something has gone up 15 times in the last 5 years. And it’s GOOD!

Can you guess what it might be?

NPR Reports that LEED Certification Takes the Lead

Green building now accounts for nearly one-third of new construction in the United States, up from 2 percent in 2005, according to McGraw-Hill Construction.

The key to being green is being LEED certified. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. It is the green building rating system developed by the US Green Building Council in 1998 to encourage environmental awareness.

Getting LEED certification can add about 4.7 percent to the cost of a project, according to studies by the University of Michigan. But for many businesses, getting LEED certification is worth the expense, says Andy Hoffman, a professor of sustainable enterprise at Michigan.

"They created a cachet around the LEED certification," he says. "And they got people to want to do this as a marketing pitch — and I think that was really a stroke of genius to get a rather inertial industry to start to shift."

Source: National Public Radio, Franklyn Cater (09/07/2010)

Some definitions and links to more information:

LEED is an internationally recognized green building certification system, providing third-party verification that a building or community was designed and built using strategies aimed at improving performance across all the metrics that matter most: energy savings, water efficiency, CO2 emissions reduction, improved indoor environmental quality, and stewardship of resources and sensitivity to their impacts.

LEED for Neighborhood Development integrates the principles of smart growth, urbanism and green building into the first national system for neighborhood design.

Environmental design is the process of addressing surrounding environmental parameters when devising plans, programs, policies, buildings, or products.

2010-01-20T13:34:00.002-06:00

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New Urbanist Projects Abound

Growing numbers of Boomers and Millennials are becoming aware of and are seeking out alternatives to the mono-cultures of uniform, uninspired product types and single price points arranged as separated, single-purpose developments. We have become used to places where we only work, places where we only shop, places where we only live in our apartment or places where we only live in our single family house (all about the same size and price range of course). We have become used to the private care being required to get from one “mono-pod” to the other for every single human need.

But there IS another way. All across the county (and in many other parts of the world as well) a wide variety of new urbanist projects have been and are being built to offer us that better way. The variety of innovative types of new urban development responds to the motivations of both the Boomers and the Millennials in unique ways.

Some of the alternatives that new urbanism offers include:

Adaptive Reuse of existing structures: Example - old red brick warehouses converted into retail, offices, apartments above first floor retail like Tip Top

Redevelopment: Examples - Midtown Crossing and Aksarben Village

Urban Infill: Development of vacant parcels that were passed over

Greyfields: Redevelopment of abandoned or under-utilized shopping centers and “ghost boxes” (a.k.a. defunct “big box“ stores)

Brownfields: Redevelopment of industrial sites: Examples - Riverfront Place and the Rows at SOMA

Greenfields: Conservation neighborhoods and new traditional neighborhoods (TNDs) usually located on the urban edge: Example - Leytham

TODs: Transit oriented developments that take advantage of locations near transit such as commuter or light rail, for example, to increase density and mix uses. There are no examples in Omaha (yet).

New urbanist projects are compact, mixed use, and walkable with vibrant civic spaces. If you are interested in exploring further, New Urban News has created a very useful tool which sorts and categorizes many new urbanist projects. You can search by state or by project type. Just click here:

http://www.newurbannews.com/newurbancommunities.html

Be sure to see the projects listed under Nebraska. My personal favorite, of course, is Leytham, the Omaha area's first new greenfield traditional neighborhood development (TND). If you have not visited the Leytham website, I invite you to do so, and be sure to register on the site to receive updates in the Leytham e-newsletter.

Happy browsing . . . .

Leytham Launches New Website

2009-06-20T14:47:00.008-05:00

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Leytham Has a New Website

Just click here, or go to http://www.leytham.com/ to learn all that is new at Leytham, Omaha's first greenfield New Traditional Neighborhood.

Here are just a few of the new Leytham site's highlights to get you started:

The Promise of Leytham Life . . . Life Well Lived
Conventional Subdivision vs. New Traditional Neighborhood
Videos of other New Traditonal Neighborhoods
Home Plans & Renderings for Leytham
The Leytham neighborhood site plans
An expanded and updated FAQs
Request more information or attend a Founding Residents' Presentation

Be sure to bookmark the new Leytham website so you can return to it often to explore its content and to see what is new as we continue to create Omaha's New Traditional Neighborhood.

And don't forget to register yourself or a friend to receive periodic email updates from Leytham.

Winner of the Congress for the New Urbanism's Video Contest

2009-05-10T11:56:00.006-05:00

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The annual Congress of the New Urbanism is meeting next month in Denver for its seventeenth congress. The annual Congress for the New Urbanism is the nation’s leading forum dedicated to advancing urbanism and promoting alternatives to sprawl. Click here for the CNU17 conference website.

New Urbanism is an urban design and development movement dedicated to implementing community-oriented principles of traditional town and city planning in contrast to the prevailing system of formless sprawl.

New Urbanist traditional neighborhood developments (called "TNDs", for short), like Omaha's first new greenfield traditional neighborhood development, Leytham, are compact and walkable, provide a diverse range of housing options, encourage a rich mix of uses, and provide welcoming public spaces.

As part of the Congress's program, a video contest produced this winning entry called, "Built to Last." The 3-minute video asks the question“What’s the greatest threat to our planet?” The creators' answer is not cow flatulence, but rather the ubiquitous cul-de-sac. The sometimes humorous and alway compelling video shows how reimagining our cities and suburbs to be sustainable and walkable will cut carbon emissions, commutes and calories. When it comes to saving the planet, "what we build is the greatest threat…or the greatest hope," say the filmmakers in "Built to Last."

This Can Not Be Surprising . . .

2008-05-12T14:56:00.011-05:00

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The smaller, better home is becoming more and more popular

In a February survey of potential home buyers by the National Association of Home Builders, 60 percent said they would rather have a smaller house with more amenities than vice versa. "In the past, people would say 'Give me space and I'll add the features later,' " says Gopal Ahluwalia, the NAHB's vice president of research. Newly built houses will have layouts that can "live bigger" than their square footage would suggest, with rooms that can do double duty, experts say.

You read here in my postings of May 23rd and July 6th, last, of this trend. If you missed those posts you may wish to read them now. Smaller lives better, greener and more cost effectively and reflects the changing demographics of our society.

9% of buyers are single men, 22% are single women. 60% of all home buyers have no children under 18.

Couple those facts with the trend toward smaller family sizes, and you get compelling reasons why smaller, better homes will become more and more popular.

Yours for the smaller, better home,

Herb

An Incentive for Going Green . . .

2008-03-21T13:06:00.007-05:00

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This is a welcome sign . . . .

Countrywide Home Loans, a division of Countrywide Bank, FSB, has announced the retail launch of its Green Incentive Program, which will initially be available to qualified homebuyers in thirteen states, including: Alaska, Colorado, Iowa, Idaho, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Washington and Wyoming.

The program provides an interest rate reduction of .125 percent on a Countrywide loan used to purchase a new home that is built meeting recognized green and energy efficient standards.

The Countrywide Green Incentive Program's interest rate reduction applies to newly constructed homes that meet third-party, certified standards of recognized green building programs, including Energy Star, Earth Advantage, LEED for Homes and Built Green programs of local home builder associations, as well as the National Association of Home Builder's Green Building program.

This 1/8 th of a point in interest will save the homeowner with a $200,000, 30 year loan $1,911.60 over the ten years the average homeowner is now staying in his/her home. These savings when added to the energy and maintenance savings of building green, make going green even more financially attractive. And, of course, saving some money is not the only (or even the prime) motivator impelling more and more people to build green.

The Next Slum?

2008-03-08T20:22:00.006-06:00

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A Provocative Thesis from Someone Not Unqualified* to Provoke Us:

Is THIS the Next Slum?

The universal definition of a McMansion is a house quite a bit larger than any one you'd want to live in.

Chris Leinberber has a written a very provocative essay in this month's (March 2008) issue of "The Atlantic." Leinberger concludes that in 25 years American cities may look very different from the way they look now, with vibrant urban cores surrounded by suburbs where the former McMansions have been broken into flats into which multiple families of the the poor have been crowded.

Looking beyond the current subprime mortgage crisis, Leinberger writes “a structural change is under way in the housing market--a major shift in the way many Americans want to live and work. It has shaped the current downturn, steering some of the worst problems away from the cities and toward the suburban fringes. And its effects will be felt more strongly, and more broadly, as the years pass. Its ultimate impact on the suburbs, and the cities, will be profound.”

In support of his thesis Leinburger cites the work of Arthur C. Nelson, director of the Metropolitan Institute at Virginia Tech. Nelson has looked carefully at trends in American demographics, construction, house prices, and consumer preferences. In 2006, using recent consumer research, housing supply data, and population growth rates, he modeled future demand for various types of housing. The results were bracing: Nelson forecasts a likely surplus of 22 million large-lot homes . . . by 2025—that’s roughly 40 percent of the large-lot homes in existence today." Just imagine the implications of such an over-supply . . . .

This likely scenario, Mr. Leinberger writes, is a result of “the pendulum swinging back toward urban living,” thanks to a set of economic, social, and demographic trends which you can read about in the essay. "Many Americans, meanwhile, became disillusioned with the sprawl and stupor that sometimes characterize suburban life. . . . Most Americans now live in single-family suburban houses that are segregated from work, shopping, and entertainment; but it is urban life, almost exclusively, that is culturally associated with excitement, freedom, and diverse daily life." Clearly, Leinberger does not believe that walkable urbanity will be for every one, but he applauds the greater choices that people will have as we build a greater variety of housing types in denser, mixed-use settings.

Whether Mr. Leinberger has described the exact vision of the future is not the main question and should not defocus us into argument with him on the finer points of his thesis. Rather, we should be asking ourselves what are the implications of the key concerns he has raised, even if his predictions come only partially true? We need to know if much of what we've been building over the last half century is destined to decline or even decay. We know how to do better now. When the next generations ask us why we made so many bad buildings in so many bad places, what will we say?

*Christopher B. Leinberger, a land use strategist and developer, is a Visiting Fellow at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. He focuses on research and practice that help transform traditional and suburban downtowns and other places that provide “walkable urbanism” Leinberger is also a Professor of Practice and Director of the Graduate Real Estate Development Program at the University of Michigan. This program trains the next generation of real estate developers in the building of sustainable walkable urban places. Mr. Leinberger is also a founding partner of Arcadia Land Company, a New Urbanism development firm dedicated to land stewardship and building a sense of community. His partners are Robert Davis, the developer of Seaside, Florida, and Joe Duckworth, who has run two Builder 100 home building companies and was the National Home Builder of the Year in 1992. Arcadia Land has developments in the Philadelphia metropolitan area, a 1,400-acre development in Independence, Mo., a joint venture with Forest City Enterprises, and was the catalytic developer for the revitalization of downtown Albuquerque, N.M. See www.arcadialand.com.

Leytham Life Slogan?

2007-09-23T19:24:00.000-05:00

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Leytham is not a conventional subdivision. It is not a development as we have come to know that term. It is much more than just a real estate project. It is a new neighborhood where people will work, learn, play, shop and, of course, live. Since Leytham embodies so many of the aspects of life, the idea of Leytham can best be summed up as "Leytham Life."

Click below for the next Leytham Life marketing tag line.

Leytham Life Slogan Generator

Once at the Slogan Generator, you can click on "Generate My Slogan" over and over again to get new tag lines. If you like one of them, let me know.

Herb

"Things are bad and they're getting worse"

2007-09-20T14:16:00.000-05:00

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What cost $78.2 Billion Dollars (in 2005), took 4.2 Billion Hours and wasted 2.9 Billion Gallons of gasoline?

Traffic congestion, that's what . . . according to the Texas Traffic Institute’s "2007 Urban Mobility Report" released this week.

"Things are bad and they're getting worse," says Alan Pisarski, a transportation expert and the author of "Commuting in America."

On the way to finding one of those 11 parking stalls per family (see last week's posting here), average driver in 437 U.S. urban areas (and all of his/her passengers) spent 38 hours locked up in traffic congestion. This wasted 26 gallons of gasoline, and cost $710. By comparison, in 1982 the average annual delay was 14 hours, consumed 9 gallons of gasoline and cot $260 (in constant 2005 dollars.)

Here's a list of cities where the institute found the worst traffic jams, along with the number of hours in a year drivers spent stuck behind the wheel:

Large Cities

Los Angles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, 72 hours
San Francisco-Oakland, 60
Washington, DC-VA-MD, 60
Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, 58
Houston, 56
Detroit, 54
Miami, 50
Phoenix, 48
Chicago, 46
New York-Newark, NY-NJ-CT, 46
Boston, 46
Seattle, 45
Philadelphia, NJ-DE_MD, 38

Medium Cities

San Diego, 57 hours
San Jose, Calif., 54
Orlando, Fla., 54
Denver-Aurora, Colo., 50
Riverside-San Bernardino, Calif., 49
Tampa-St. Petersburg, Fla., 45
Baltimore, Md., 44
Minneapolis, St. Paul, 43
Indianapolis, Ind, 43
Sacramento, Calif., 41
Las Vegas, 39
San Antonio, Texas., 39
Portland, Ore., 38
Columbus, Ohio, 33
St. Louis, 33

But, what about Omaha? What about our "20 minute city?" According to the study, the average driver in Omaha wasted 25 hours in traffic congestion and in doing so, wasted 15 gallons of fuel. What if you add all that up? In Omaha alone, the study's authors conclude, in 2005 we collectively wasted 8,784,000 hours and 5,344,000 million gallons of gas for a combined "all in cost" of $154,000,000. What was YOUR share?

To check out the study, go here: http://tti.tamu.edu/documents/mobility_report_2007.pdf

So while you are stuck in traffic on your quest for your next parking stall, just think about it for a bit, and consider the benefits of the walkable, mixed use residential neighborhood.

Herb

Source: "2007 Urban Mobility Report," Texas Transportation Institute (09/2007)

Your New Urban Factoid(s) of the Day

2007-09-13T20:28:00.000-05:00

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"Do we need this much parking space?"

Purdue University researchers surveyed the total area devoted to parking in a midsize Midwestern county and found that parking spaces outnumbered resident drivers 3-to-1 and outnumbered resident families 11-to-1. The researchers found the total parking area to be larger than 1,000 football fields, or covering more than two square miles.

Source: Purdue University News (09/11/2007)
http://news.uns.purdue.edu/x/2007b/070911PijanowskiParking.html

"Even I was surprised by these numbers," said Bryan Pijanowski, the associate professor of forestry and natural resources who led the study in Purdue's home county of Tippecanoe. "I can't help but wonder: Do we need this much parking space?"

The Purdue University News article goes on to note that large churches and "big-box" retailers . . . often feature parking lots that take up more than twice the area of their buildings . . . .

“Parking lots at big-box stores and mega-churches are rarely filled," Pijanowski said. A different approach to development planning could mitigate the monetary and environmental costs associated with parking areas, he said.

"In many areas of the world, particularly Europe, cities were planned prior to automobiles, and many locations are typically within walking distance," Pijanowski said. "This is just one different way to plan that has certain advantages."

"People can help by first realizing that our land is not unlimited and that we need to use it prudently," Pijanowski said. "They can seek a lifestyle that requires less automobile use.”

Yours for the walkable residential mixed use neighborhood that does not require 11 parking spaces per family,

Herb

Omaha by Design Cites Leytham

2007-08-06T18:34:00.000-05:00

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There is a "Walkable Residential Neighborhood" in Your Future . . .

For the past several years Omaha by Design has been working to improve the physical and social environment of Omaha. The goal is to help create "an Omaha that's connected, smart, significant, sparkling and fun." The "Urban Design Element" implements the Omaha by Design concepts and goals and will result in "long-term improvements to our streetscapes, signage, landscaping, building design, pedestrian networks and public spaces. It will improve the connections between our neighborhoods, commercial centers and civic districts."

Omaha by Design's "Urban Design Element Implementation Measures" were summarized
in a special supplement to the Sunday, August 5th, edition of the Omaha World-Herald. (My supplement was in the big mass of flyers and advertising inserts that comes all wrapped together with the Sunday paper. If you throw all that away enmass like I usually do, then you missed this special supplement from Omaha by Design. You may want to dig it out of the recycling bin before it is too late.)

See page 10 on Walkable Residential Neighborhoods. Leytham is mentioned as an example of the type of neighborhood that Omaha by Design seeks to promote. I have highlighted the parts below that are in bold type.

Here is the quote from this section:

Walkable Residential Neighborhoods

Recent studies have shown that Americans feel increasingly disconnected from their communities, and the consequences of this disconnection are far-reaching. Some cities have attempted to address this issue by encouraging denser housing developments that are pedestrian-friendly and designed for active use. The Walkable Residential Neighborhood (WRN) (§55-208 to §55-215) designation will bring this concept to suburban parts of Omaha, offering homeowners a safer, more appealing outdoor environment that encourages physical activity and social interaction.

The WRN will be voluntarily initiated by developers. It sets out site development standards that are modeled after old style, pedestrian-oriented neighborhoods such as Benson and Dundee. While the current zoning codes tend to separate uses, the WRN encourages a mix of uses so that people can walk from their homes to shops, libraries and other civic amenities. The intent is to stimulate new residential development patterns in Omaha that contain a mix of housing types like Leytham at 168th and State streets.

The WRN is intended as a separate zoning option—it is not an overlay. It carries several criteria that developers must meet regarding the set-back of units from the public right-of way, the width of lots and the height of buildings. Projects will be approved on the basis of meeting these quantitative guidelines as well as the overall quality of the site plan.

Copyright (c) 2007 Omaha World-Herald 08/05/2007

The page also featured this rendering of Leytham showing the market hall and the farmers' market.

For more information see: www.OmahaByDesign.org

Yours for the improved physical and social environments that Omaha by Design seeks to foster,

Herb

A Sign of the Times . . . JUST as I have foretold . . . .

2007-07-06T20:24:00.000-05:00

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KB Home building smaller homes

KB Home is discovering that less could be more when it comes to luring skittish buyers in a housing slump. In recent months, the company has rolled out a new line of smaller, more affordable homes that it hopes will jump-start sagging sales. The move by one of the nation's largest homebuilders comes amid a worsening housing slump that some analysts now say could last for several more years.

"Smaller homes generate lower revenues, but they sell faster, therefore the cash returns are better," said KB Home's chief executive, Jeffrey Mezger.

Other major builders, including Fort Worth (TX)-based D.R. Horton Inc., also have started downsizing some home offerings. But KB Home has led the way, said Greg Gieber, an analyst with A.G. Edwards & Sons Inc. "They understand the balance, what they can take away and how much they can reduce price having taken that amenity away," he said.

The company declined to disclose national figures on how the smaller homes were selling. But KB said it sold 48 units in the past eight weeks at a Las Vegas community where homes range from 1,267 square feet to 1,608 square feet, and prices start at $195,590. The homes are as much as 500 square feet smaller than homebuyers might have preferred a year ago, Mezger said.

Prices vary, but the smaller homes are as much as 20 percent cheaper than larger versions. Buyers can still opt to add a bevy of amenities, which can drive up the final price.

"Affordability is a real issue today in most of the markets that we operate in," Mezger said. "Across the company we're going to an average smaller-size home."

Source: RealTrends, July 3, 2007

These homes are located in a subdivision called Huntington in southwest Las Vegas. The smallest home at 1,298 square feet is about half the average size of new homes currently being built. Offered at $199,590 it is a two bed room, 1.5 bath two story with a one car garage. See the homes and learn more about them here:

http://www.kbhome.com/Community~CommID~00850727.aspx

See my posts of May 23rd, "Is Small the Next Big?" and March 29th, "Buyers Choose Better Quality Over Bigger Space" for an in depth discussion of this "smaller new house phenomenon."

We will see smaller houses capturing a larger segment of the market as the home building industry confronts the trifecta of new realities: affordability, energy and demographics:

1. Housing is becoming less and less affordable for more and more people. A big driver in the housing affordability problem is bloating in the sizes of the new homes being built.

2. Energy will continue to cost more and more and more. And as energy costs go up both to heat, cool and run a house and to drive to and from it for every little need, both houses and people's habits will have to change.

3. The married couple with 2.2 children comprises only about 25% of all households, yet nearly all the conventional subdivision lots in sprawl America are aimed at this shrinking demographic segment.

The principles of new urbanism and traditional neighborhood development address these new realities very handily and that is why the new traditional neighborhood will do so well in the coming years.

To learn more, visit Leytham.com here:

Great Press for Leytham . . .

2007-07-05T15:13:00.000-05:00

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Leytham? What's a Leytham?

Leytham gets some great front-page press in the July 5th edition of the Omaha World-Herald:

http://www.omaha.com/index.php?u_page=2798&u_sid=10071055

New Urbanism MeetUp Group in Omaha

2007-07-04T16:14:00.000-05:00

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Hello, All and a Happy 4th of July to you! There is a New Meetup Group in Omaha . . . .

About a month ago I started a new MeetUp group called the "Omaha New Urbanism & Sustainable Development Meetup Group." So far our small group has had its first meeting. It occured to me to let the readers of NewHerbanism know about this new group in the hopes that some of you might care to join the group. Just log on here and sign up.

http://newurbanism.meetup.com/106/?gj=sj5

I hope to see some of you at our next meeting.

Yours for advancing the New Urbanism,

Herb

Your New Urban Factoid(s) of the Day

2007-06-26T12:18:00.000-05:00

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Your New Urban Factoid(s) of the Day . . .

88% of us drive to work every day. Of those that drive only 10.7% car pool. That means that over 77% are riding in a car all alone.

Alternative methods of getting to work in the US (in decreasing order) are:

4.7% mass transit [50% of the country's mass transit riders are in only 10 cities]

3.6% no commute at all! They Work at Home! [5.3% work at home in Portland, OR]

2.5% walk to work [13% walk in Boston]

Source: Daily Real Estate News, June 14, 2007

The dense, walkable, mixed use new traditional neighborhood will help that 77% figure drop. Here is the proof from an article entitled, "We Would Use Less Energy Living Closer Together"

The Philadelphia Inquirer wrote:

A 2002 peer-reviewed study by John Holtzclaw and other researchers examined odometer readings from annual government-run vehicles . . . to compare driving patterns across metro Chicago, Los Angeles and San Francisco. It showed that miles driven by an average household dropped by 32 percent to 43 percent as the density of neighborhoods doubled.

In the next 30 years, our country will build 70 million new dwellings somewhere. With urban life emerging as a market favorite, it's looking more as if building a good portion of them in livable, walkable traditional neighborhoods is one of the most convenient - and effective - remedies for the inconvenient truth.

Source: The Philadelphia Inquirer, Thursday, May 17, 2007

The new traditional neighborhood of Leytham (see www.Leytham.com) will offer many design features that should help to reduce total vehicle miles driven. These include a mix of uses so that not every trip for every need will have to be in a car. It shouldn't take a gallon of gas to get a gallon of milk. The mix of uses will also allow some people to work in the neighborhood where they live and simply walk or bike to where they work. Alternate dwelling types such as accessory units (space over peoples' garages or free-standing in their back yards) and live/work units will also permit people to have no commute because their business/work will be in, under or in back of their residence.

Just an incremental increase in people walking or biking to work and working out of their homes can have a dramatic effect on lowering total vehicle miles that a household has to drive. Then, when you add in fewer driving trips for shopping, for recreation, for school, the impact of the new traditional neighborhood is mulitplied for the good. It all adds up to fewer miles driven, less greehouse gasses emmitted, less negative envirornmental impact and a higher quality of life for all.

Leytham Neighborhood Plan

2007-06-23T11:08:00.000-05:00

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Leytham Neighborhood Plan
[Click on neighborhood plan to enlarge it.]

To learn more about Omaha's first new traditional neighborhood, click on www.Leytham.com

The plan for Leytham is taking shape. The vision created during the design charrette last September is becoming reality. The engineered plan is remarkably close to the designed plan. Although not yet completely final, this is very close to how the Leytham neighborhood will lay out.

Here is a summary of the lot types. Not including the accessory dwellings over garages (think of the old style carrage house and you will get the idea immediately), or the appartments, or the flats over retail spaces, there are seven different home types. They include:

Estate Homes on lots greater than 72 feet wide;
Boulevard Homes on lots between 65' and 72' wide;
Park Homes on lots between 57' and 65' wide;
Village Homes on lots between 49' and 56' wide;
Cottage Homes on lots between 28' and 48' wide;
Row Houses, and
Live/Work Units.

Although the lots are not yet ready for pricing, there will be a wide range of lot prices that reflect the various sizes. This will enable Leytham to offer homes types and sizes in a wide range of prices. A diverse, walkable, interesting, beautiful neighborhood will be the result. These are the traits of our best loved places and this is what new traditional neighborhoods are all about.

If you would like more information on a lot in Leytham, just send an email to me at herb@FullCircleVentures.com and we can begin to explore just how a home in Leytham can complete your heart's desire.

Herb

Prize Money Goes to Habitat for Humanity

2007-06-20T12:26:00.000-05:00

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Herb Presents Donation to Amanda Jedlicka, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Omaha

As you will recall from my post of June 7th, no one submitted the name that was selected for the new traditional neighborhood on State Street. That post reveals that the name "Leytham" was selected both for its deep historical connections to the land and the perfect symbolism of its etymological derivation.

Since no one submitted the winning name, it only seemed fitting to donate the $500 prize money to Habitat for Humanity of Omaha. So on Wednesday, June 20th, Herb presented the donation to Amanda Jedlicka, Executive Director of Habitat for Humanity of Omaha at HfHO's offices. Decent housing for all is a goal we can all get behind and that goal is reflected in the wide variety of housing types and price points that will be available in Letham.

To learn more about Habitat for Humanity of Omaha's work go to www.HabitatOmaha.org.

To learn more about Omaha's first new greenfield traditional neighborhood, be sure to visit www.Leytham.com.

High Energy Prices Cut into Housing Budgets

2007-06-12T14:01:00.000-05:00

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More for Energy; Less for Everything Else
Poorest Hit the Hardest

Rising energy prices are forcing more families, especially the poorest ones, to cut into the budgets they usually would use to pay for housing, food, and even health care, says a new study.

Squeezed the hardest are the country's poorest families. For those with an after-tax income of less than $10,000, energy costs will consume 46 percent of their take-home pay 2007, compared with 23 percent in 1997, according to the study.

Looking at a larger swath of the population — the 53 percent of American families who earn less than $50,000 — average transportation and household energy bills will take up 18 percent of after-tax income. That's nearly double the costs of 1997.

The study was completed by Gene Trisko, an environmental attorney and energy economist, on behalf of Americans for Balanced Energy Choices, an organization that supports using domestic coal to generate electricity.

Gas Prices Rise the Most

Gasoline accounts for the largest single increase in consumer energy costs with the average retail cost of gasoline increasing by 88 percent or more since 2001.

The study estimates that Americans will spend over $2,900 per family, or 6 percent of after tax income, on gasoline in 2007 with families earning between $10,000 and $50,000 spending 11 percent of after tax dollars on gas.

Spending on residential energy will consume 10 percent of after-tax income for families earning between $10,000 and $50,000. In the last decade residential energy costs have risen by 50 percent overall.

Here's a look at how household energy spending has increased between 1997 and 2007, using projected figures for this year:

• Electricity: 40% increase ($870 in 1997; $1,215 in 2007)
• Natural Gas: 64% increase ($579 in 1997; $949 in 2007)
• Fuel Oil: 96% increase ($714 in 1997; $1,402 in 2007)
• Propane Gas: 76% increase ($500 in 1997; $903 in 2007)

Remember that gasoline has increased by 88% just since 2001.

Source: REALTOR® Magazine Online, June 11, 2007

This is just more evidence that the denser, walkable, mixed use neighborhood is here to stay. As energy prices continue their inexorable increases, we will have to rethink both how we live and how we get around.

Herb

Leytham . . . the New Neighborhood on State Street

2007-06-07T12:53:00.000-05:00

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What’s Behind the Naming of the New Traditional Neighborhood on State Street?

The United States of America, in a series of Bounty Land Acts dating from the Revolutionary War in 1776 through 1855, followed a policy of rewarding those who served the country with bounty land grants. Eligibility was gradually extended to include officers and soldiers of the regular army, navy, militia and Native Americans mustered into the service of the United States in time of war.

By the middle of the nineteenth century, Congress had authorized the transfer of sixty million acres of the public domain to veterans as a way for the government to induce men to enlist, to further compensate those who had served, to provide for their widows and children and to settle the west. The land bounty was granted in the form of a warrant. The warrant did not actually convey title to the land, but with his bounty land warrant the veteran could apply for a land patent whereby actual title to the land was transferred to him from the public domain. Most who received a land bounty warrant did not actually take title to any land. Rather, through a wide spread business involving agents, the land bounty warrants were sold to others who redeemed them for the actual land. And so it was that William Scripter, having served in Captain Beach's company of the New York State Militia in the War of 1812, received land bounty Warrant 25,027 and subsequently sold it.

The original patent for the land which will become Omaha area’s first new traditional neighborhood proclaims:

“In pursuance to the Act of Congress, approved March 3, 1855, entitled ‘An Act in addition to certain Acts granting Bounty Land to certain Officers and Soldiers who have been engaged in the military service of the United States’ there has been deposited in the General Land Office, Warrant No. 25,027 . . . .”

Warrant No. 25,027 was redeemed for a patent that, on the first day of October in 1860, the 15th President of the United States of America, James Buchanan, caused to be issued.

The patent land had been owned by the federal government since it was acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Before that the French had laid claim to the land which the Omaha Tribe of Native Americans had lived upon for centuries without any concept of private ownership of the land. The Omaha arrived here after having come “up stream,” the literal meaning of “Omaha.” John Lee Webster, President of the Nebraska State Historical Society, noted in his annual address of January 16, 1913:

There is a well authenticated tradition among the Omaha Tribe, that, impelled by a spirit of migration . . . , they took up their journey from their eastern home near the headwaters of the Ohio and followed that river to the union of its waters with the Mississippi, and thence up the eastern side of the Missouri, and eventually permanently settled three and a half centuries ago in what afterward became known as the Nebraska region.

The same spirit that drives all human migration and which impelled the Omaha to come up stream to Nebraska also prompted a certain Englishman in 1855 to sail to America, and then to find his way to Nebraska Territory to settle in Omaha in 1856, and then in 1860 to obtain Warrant 25,027 and to redeem that warrant for a patent from the federal government for 160 acres of virgin prairie in Douglas County, Nebraska Territory. His name was Richard Leytham and he was a farmer. Here is his story and that of his family.

The Nebraska Territorial Census reveals that in 1860 Richard was 37 years old. His wife, Elizabeth, was 31. The Leythams were both born in Lancashire, England. Their eleven year old son, John, and eight year old Thomas were born in Liverpool. Two year old Eleanor was born in Nebraska. Five years later the Leytham family moved to Shelby County, Iowa.

Some twenty-nine years after he received the patent on the 160 acres in Nebraska, the 1889 Biographical History of Shelby County, Iowa records that:

RICHARD LEYTHAM is one of the oldest pioneers of Cass Township, having come there in 1865. He was born in Lancashire, England, March 3, 1823, and is the son of John and Eleanor (Singleton) Leytham. He was reared to the occupation of a farmer. November 12, 1848, he was married to Elizabeth Taylor, a native of England, and a daughter of James and Eunice (Oibin) Taylor. In 1855 Mr. and Mrs. Leytham sailed from Liverpool to America; they landed at Boston and proceeded to Canada, but remained there only a short time comparatively. In the spring of 1856 they removed to Omaha, Nebraska. Omaha then had a few shanties, one hotel, the Douglas House, a small boarding-house called Little Ireland, and lots of whisky. A three days' residence in Omaha satisfied Mr. Leytham and his wife, so they went to Florence, Nebraska, six miles north of Omaha, where they were among the first settlers. They built them a home, and remained there nine years. In 1865 they came to Shelby County, and Mr. Leytham bought sixty acres of land, ten of which were broken; there was a log-cabin on the place, and there was no other between Cass Township and Harlan. Mr. Leytham now owns 220 acres of well-improved land, stocked with a large number of cattle and horses. Mr. and Mrs. Leytham are the parents of fifteen children, nine of whom are living -- John, Thomas, Eleanor, Robert, Richard, Ann Jane, Sarah, Eunice and William; those deceased are -- Eunice, the first child so called, Elizabeth, James, Maggie, Samuel and Charles. The parents are members and zealous supporters of the Latter-Day Saints church, Mr. Leytham being a teacher in the church. He and his wife were brought up in the Church of England, but changed their views after coming to America, and united with the church of the Latter-Day Saints. In politics Mr. Leytham is inclined to the principles of the Democratic party. He is a good conversationalist, genial in his disposition, and an honored and respected citizen of Cass Township.

Source: 1889 Biographical History of Shelby County, Iowa, pp. 478

The Leythams lived on into an old age in Shelby County, Iowa. Elizabeth died on September 26, 1909 at the age of 80. Richard lived to 88, passing away on April 10, 1911. Mr. and Mrs. Leytham are buried Cass Township Cemetery southeast of Portsmouth, Shelby County, Iowa with several of their children and grand children.

Through a series of eight title transfers, from the original 1860 Leytham patent to the founding of the Omaha area’s first new traditional neighborhood, the land has always remained intact. Each owner has passed on the entire 160 acres. Now, after nearly 150 years of private ownership, it is time for the current owner of the land, Herb Freeman, to found a new and enduring traditional neighborhood so that many may benefit from the respectful improvement and wise use of this land.

The Leythams exemplify the pioneer spirit. They came to the new world from the old and lived on the wild frontier. Through industry and effort and living good lives, they began the transformation of the land. The people who live in this new neighborhood will be the next links in the long chain of those, unknown and known, titled or not, who have occupied and used this land over the centuries. It is only fitting and proper that we name this new community after the family who were the pivot point at that unique hinge in time between the unknown who used the land without title and those who come down known to us in the chain of private title. It is only fitting and proper that we name the new neighborhood after the Leythams.

The etymology of British place names reveals that the meaning of “Leytham” perfectly symbolizes the new neighborhood on State Street. “Ley” is the second most common element in British surnames. It comes from the Old English “leah” and the Middle English “leye” meaning clearing, grassland or meadow. The “(t)-ham” ending is a common Anglo-Saxon suffix meaning a home or homestead, and later a village, manor or estate. How appropriate it is that “Leytham” means, quite literally, “Village in the Meadow?”

So where does the credit go for the naming the new traditional neighborhood on State Street? As you may know, during the design charrette we announced a contest with a $500 prize to the person who submitted the name that was selected. Well, no one submitted the actual name. But a few people contributed significantly to the process. Some said, “Why don’t you check the history of the property and see what that suggests.” A title search revealed Richard Leytham as the first private owner of the land. Some in-depth research uncovered his story. One person suggested looking at the etymology of British place names. That produced the derivation of the Leytham name and confirmed its selection as the name for Omaha’s first greenfield new traditional neighborhood. I guess one could say that the process produced the name. You were part of that process if you submitted a name for consideration because you helped me focus my thinking. Thank you to all those who submitted a name. I appreciate your interest and support very much. Since no one person actually submitted the name, the prize will be donated to Habitat for Humanity where it may do a bit of good to bring quality housing to those who most need it

There is a saying among the new urbanists: "Most developers name their projects after whatever it is that they destroyed by developing the project." Think about the names of many of the Omaha area's conventional subdivisions and you will see what they mean. Not so on State Street. Both in terms of its historic significance and its literal meaning, the perfect name by which we shall call the Omaha area’s first new traditional neighborhood is . . . Leytham.

Artist's rendering of the view across the wetlands and up a greenway to The Commons at Leytham, the "Village in the Meadow."

Original Charrette hand drawing by DeDe Christopher, September 2006. See her web site here: http://www.christopherillustration.com. Of special interest is this link to DeDe's website displaying the beautiful work she created at the Leytham Charrette: http//www.christopherillustration.com/charrettes/omaha.html. Many thanks, Dede, for bringing life to Leytham.

Herb

Click here to learn more: www.WhatsNewOnStateStreet.com

The Accelerating Curve into the Future

2007-06-03T22:08:00.000-05:00

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Take a look at this curve.

It comes to us from a very interesting site: http://www.hybridcars.com

Source: http://www.hybridcars.com/hybrid-drivers/hybrid-market-forecasts.html

It represents projected demand for hybrid cars. But it could also represent a lot of other things . . . .

The price of gasoline?

Computer processing power?

Demand for higher density, walkable, mixed-use new traditional neighborhoods?

Consider this from the Congress for the New Urbanism:

The growing demand will be the result of changing demographics, changing tastes, and the closing of the suburban frontier. Americans are getting older, and fewer households have children. Both of these demographic trends contribute to growing demand for more varied housing choices. Many Americans’ tastes are moving more toward dense environments, as shown by the growth of “café culture,” an attraction to ethnic diversity, and a strong attraction toward good urbanism among upper-middle class trendsetters. Perhaps most importantly, in many regions, car-dependent suburbs have never looked less attractive. In economically strong regions, suburban traffic is increasing unbearably while valued open space is converted inexorably into more suburban sprawl. In other regions, housing values are stagnating. Nationwide, older suburbs are experiencing disinvestment similar to the “white flight” of the 1950s.

Source: http://www.cnu.org/sites/files/Coming_Demand.pdf

Yes, a lot of things will be changing at a very rapid rate, and mostly because they have to.

Yours for keeping ahead of the curve,

Herb

Is Small the Next Big?

2007-05-23T18:41:00.000-05:00

And How Did Things Get to Be that Big Anyway?

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There is a growing consciousness in the country that a lot of things need to shrink. A lot of things have gotten to be just too big. Look around and you will see the proof everywhere . . . from the size of our food portions to the proportions of our homes.

Since 1987 the diameter of an ordinary bagel has ballooned 3 inches and the calorie count has jumped a whopping 250% percent from 140 to 350. The average cookie has increased from 1.5 inches to 3.5 inches. Muffins have mushroomed from 1.5 ounces to 4.5 ounces while French fries have been supersized from 2.4 ounces to 6.9 ounces.

But that is just food. Look at what has happened to the size of our houses. For each year below the average square footage of a new home built that year is shown:

1950......983
1970....1,500
1990....2,080
2004....2,349

See my post of March 29th for a more in-depth discussion of this phenomenon.

Can things continue to grow bigger and bigger relentlessly forever? More and more people are concluding that they cannot. At the fifteenth annual meeting of the Congress for the New Urbanism in Philadelphia last week, there was evident a growing consensus that a lot of things have to get smaller and get smaller fast.

We need to have a smaller carbon foot print to have any hope at all of slowing the course of global climate change. That means smaller, more energy efficient cars, more reliance on mass transit and increased use of alternate modes of transportation ranging from the bicycle to good, old fashioned walking. It means smaller houses too. It means green building and it means smart growth and new urbanism and traditional neighborhood development.

The growing series of books that started with Sarah Susanka’s The Not So Big House (see http://www.notsobighouse.com/) and the rapidly rising popularity of the Katrina Cottages originally designed by Marianne Cusato (see http://www.cusatocottages.com/) now being marketed in kit form by Lowe’s are but a few of the clues that the movement to get smaller is getting bigger.

From the size of the food portions we eat to the size of houses we live in and every thing in between, it is time now to reassess just how much “Bigness” we can take. Small is the next Big.

Be sure to visit the website for Omaha's first new traditional neighborhood: http://www.whatsnewonstatestreet.com/.

Click here to see the site plan : http://www.whatsnewonstatestreet.com/info/day_06siteplan.html and notice the variety of lot types that will accommodate the smaller dwelling unit. In Omaha’s first new traditional neighborhood development (called for short a "TND"), you will find row house lots, live/work lots, cottage lots, village lots and accessory dwelling units over garages in the alleys. All of these, plus apartment flats in apartment mansions and over retail spaces, will offer the choices for smaller houses and dwelling units that people are seeking in bigger numbers.

Your New Urban Factoid(s) of the Day

2007-04-09T14:32:00.000-05:00

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Buyers Want It All Within Walking Distance. . .

Factoid 1: 75 percent of families do not have any school-age children.

Factoid 2 : Christopher B. Leinberger, a Brookings Institution fellow, says up to 40 percent of Americans want to live in urban places where they can walk to restaurants, shop, jobs, and entertainment.

Source: Builder Magazine, Sharon O’Malley (03/01/2007) as reported in Daily Real Estate News, April 9, 2007

Conclusion: The next hot market will be homes in walkable, dense, mixed used, urban neighborhoods. New urbanism and the new traditional neighborhoods are poised perfectly to fill the coming demand for the real places that FEEL like home. TNDs (traditional neighborhood developments) are being founded all across American and indeed, the world, as more and more people come to crave the feel of an authentic place designed for people and not for cars.

To learn more about the Omaha area's first new traditional, walkable, mixed-use neighborhood, be sure to visit www.whatsnewonstatestreet.com. Register on the contact/info page www.whatsnewonstatestreet.com/info/contact.html to receive periodic updates and progress reports.

You Can Save 43% by Ditching One Car

2007-04-01T23:12:00.000-05:00

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So, folks, there I was at 32,000 feet flying to the regular semi-annual meeting of The Realty Alliance, reading the April issue of “Spirit,” the Southwest Airlines in-flight magazine. There in a section called “The Numbers” was this tidbit:

“A study commission by the American Public Transportation Association calculates that it costs that it costs a household $14,276 annually to transport two workers to their jobs. If one partner sells a cars and commutes by bus or train or street car or bicycle or walking or working at home in a new urban live/work unit [italics added], the household’s total expenditure for commuting drops to $8,025 – even after transit fares are added in. The lion’s share of the savings comes from the costs of owning, insuring, and fueling a second car. In comparison, the study found that the average U.S. household spent approximately $5,800 on food and $6,900 on mortgage interest in 2004, the data that was used in the January 2007 study.”

Little by little, in many ways and in many places, a new consciousness is taking shape in the country. Can you feel it too? The balance is tipping in favor of more sustainable development and building practices. The time is right for traditional neighborhood development with all the benefits conveyed by the new urbanist principles. Be sure to see the website for the Omaha area’s first new traditional greenfield neighborhood by visiting www.whatsnewonstatestreet.com.

Buyers Choose Better Quality Over Bigger Space

2007-03-29T11:49:00.000-05:00

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The decades-long explosion in residential square footage may be coming to an end, says Gopal Ahluwalia, the National Association of Home Builder’s vice president for research. Although the size of the average home has been on the rise, to 2,495 last year from 1,500 square feet in 1973, consumers are beginning to choosse higher quality living spaces over additional square footage, according to Ahluwalia, who spoke at the recent International Builders Show in Orlando, Fla. The curious thing is that while average size of new homes has increased by about 1,000 square feet or 66% in 33 years, the average household size has been dropping from 3.01 in 1973 to 2.58 in 2006. This means that the percapita square footage in new homes has increased from 498 square feet per person in 1973 to 967 square feet per person in 2006. That is a whopping 94% increase in area per person. No wonder more and more households are finding new homes to be less and less affordable.

Architects, designers, manufacturers, and marketing experts who were asked by NAHB about their expectations for future homes agreed that home size would slip into the 2,300- to 2,500-square-foot range by 2015. NAHB says that two-story homes will continue to dominate as increasing construction costs drive choices. “As housing prices go up, so too does the share of two-story homes goes up says Ahluwalia, noting that two story construction is less expensive than one story on a square-foot basis. U.S. Census Bureau data shows that 55 percent of the homes built in 2005 had two or more stories.

Not only is the two story house more affordable, but two story homes make a great deal of sense for the narrower lots in new traditional neighborhoods. Many of the most attractive homes in new urban communities are two stories. TND architects and home builders have created many attractive and functional two story plans for homes with rear facing garages that permit parking access from rear alleys.

So the key to affordability is a smaller home that is also built efficiently. Two story homes are just the ticket. That is why you see so many of them in the new traditional neighborhoods being built by the new urban TND town founders across the country.

Be sure to visit the website for Omaha's first new traditional neighborhood: http://www.whatsnewonstatestreet.com

Click here to see the site plan : http://www.whatsnewonstatestreet.com/info/day_06siteplan.html

Go here http://www.whatsnewonstatestreet.com/info/ideas_architecture.html to see examples of two story homes and how they work in the new tradtional neighborhood.

Your New Urban Factoid of the Day

2007-03-20T11:58:00.000-05:00

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Since 1995, the U.S. population has grown by 12 percent while the number of vehicle miles traveled (VMT) has grown by 24 percent . . .

but transit use is up by 30 percent to 10.1 billion trips for the first time in 49 years.

Discuss . . . .

Source: The American Public Transportation Association

Suburbans Want More Urban

2007-02-13T18:13:00.000-06:00

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Suburban cities are working with developers to create new town centers, many of them modeled after Celebration, Fla., developed by Walt Disney Co.

Urban planners say the best reason for creating a downtown is that it encourages commerce. "It's important because that's where retail's going. Shoppers want . . . an enjoyable social experience. They want to be in real places," says John Norquist, president and chief executive of Congress for the New Urbanism, a nonprofit group that encourages the building of such compact, pedestrian-friendly communities.

One of the challenges is the need to include affordable housing even though land costs are high. "Aside from diversity and all those wonderful things, no society works without some number of service workers," says David Smith, president of Recap Advisors, an affordable-housing consulting firm in Boston. "The closer they are to the jobs they do, the happier everybody is."

Another issue is that new downtowns seem contrived. Town-center designers are trying to combat that in part by hiring teams of architects so buildings aren’t all designed by one person and by selling lots separately rather than turning over large tracts to just one developer.

Source: Orlando Sentinel, Sandra Pedicini (02/12/07)

"Miles per House" Bodes Well for the New Traditional Neighborhood

2007-02-10T13:00:00.000-06:00

Energy Costs to Become Top Buyer Concern

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Look for “house miles” to become an important consideration in home purchases in coming years, say land-use experts who gathered for the Urban Land Institute’s recent meeting in Denver.

“A new generation of home buyers is looking at the world differently, and to them, green building will be a given," says John McIlwain, a senior resident fellow of ULI. "The issue of energy savings will be a fundamental driver in their decisions on what and where to buy." The cost of distance, along with heating and cooling, has a direct impact on housing affordability, McIlwain pointed out, noting that “miles per house” — the number of miles a home is from employment, retail, education, and entertainment — could become a standard measurement of location desirability.

A 2005 ULI survey of consumers found them willing to combine more trips and use mass transit more to cut down on fuel consumption, said Robert Dunphy, who's also a senior resident fellow of ULI. Transportation spending is the second largest component of consumer expenses, currently taking up an average of 19 percent of their monthly income (monthly home mortgage payments generally at least 33 percent).

As the cost of energy plays a more important role in home-buying decisions, house miles will become a deal breaker or maker. That trend will drive the development of sustainable housing and "green" communities. The land-use experts discussed some designs that are now gaining traction, such as close-in infill projects, more downtown housing, and more mixed-use projects in urban centers and on the urban fringe.

Source: Daily Real Estate News, by Camilla McLaughlin for REALTOR® Magazine Online

U.S. Homebuyers will Pay Premium for "Green" Homes

2007-02-05T14:34:00.000-06:00

Another Very Good Sign for Traditional Neighborhood Development...

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A survey released this week by Green Builder Media and Imre Communications reveals that U.S. homebuyers are willing to pay a premium for more environmentally friendly, green-built homes. The study surveyed more than 250 residential builders across the United States. A wide range of builders was included, from the affordable, market rate, luxury/semi-custom, custom, multi-family and developer categories.

More than half of homebuilders surveyed report that buyers are willing to pay a premium of between 11-25 percent for green-built homes. The same builders report that the average green homebuyer is between the ages of 35-50 with a college degree and a fair understanding of green products.

Source: Real Trends Newsletter, February 2, 2007

This is VERY good news for Traditional Neighborhood Development, because the same people who understand and value green building will understand and value the principles and benefits of living in a new traditional neighborhood.

Top 10 Trends That Shaped U.S. Cities in 2006

2006-12-27T17:59:00.000-06:00

Top 10 Trends That Shaped U.S. Cities in 2006

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For 10 years, Brookings Institution’s Metropolitan Policy Program has charted trends and highlighted challenges facing America’s metro areas. This year’s big picture: Statistics might portray an economy on the rebound, but many parts of the country and many households don’t share in that success.

Ten noteworthy trends, according to Brookings, that standout for 2006:

1. For the first time, there are more poor residents in the suburbs than in central cities.

2. Six percent of the population in large U.S. metropolitan areas live in exurbs, communities on the fringe of urban centers. Exurb characteristics: 20 percent of workers commute to city jobs; low housing density; high population growth.

3. More than one-third of the nation's loss of manufacturing jobs between 2000 and 2005 occurred in seven Great Lakes states: Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

4. America's older, inner-ring first suburbs, the earliest suburbs that sprang up around center cities before and during World War II, make up 20 percent of the nation's population and are more diverse and older than the nation as a whole.

5. The average U.S. household spends 19 percent of its budget on transportation, rendering household location a key component of housing affordability.

6. Nationwide, more than 4.2 million lower income home owners pay a higher than average APR for their mortgage. Lower income households, those earning less than $30,000, pay 6.9 percent compared with an average rate of 6.5 percent for those earning $30,000 to $60,000. Those with incomes above $120,000 paid a rate of approximately 5.5 percent.

7. The leading refugee destination metro areas have shifted away from traditional immigrant gateways, such as Los Angeles and New York, over the past two decades to newer gateways, such as Atlanta, Portland, Seattle.

8. The fastest-growing metropolitan areas for minority populations from 2000 to 2004 now closely parallel the fastest-growing areas in the nation. Las Vegas, Atlanta, Orlando, and Phoenix are now prominent centers of minority population growth.

9. Middle-income neighborhoods as a proportion of all metropolitan neighborhoods declined to 41 percent in 2000 from 58 percent in 1970, disappearing faster than the share of middle class households in these metro areas.

10. Of the $109 billion in federal appropriations dedicated to Gulf Coast funding in the first year after Hurricane Katrina, only about $35 billion went toward the long-term recovery of the region.

Source: Camilla McLaughlin for REALTOR® Magazine Online, December 27, 2006

Herb on the Radio . . . Again!

2006-12-07T11:50:00.000-06:00

1110 KFAB at 8:00 AM Saturday, December 9, 2006 . . .

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My next guest shot on the radio will be on the Grow Omaha show which airs at 8:00 a.m. every Saturday morning on radio 1110AM KFAB. Grow Omaha is hosted by Trenton Magid and Jeff Beals with Coldwell Banker Commercial World Group. I will be on the show this Saturday, December 9th.

The KFAB call-in numbers are 558-1110 or 1-800-543-1110.

Be sure to tune in right at 8:00 because I will be on during the first half of the program. Call in and support traditional neighborhood development in the Omaha area.

Thanks for your continuing interest,

Herb

Let's Say Thanks . . .

2006-12-05T12:40:00.000-06:00

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Here is something cool that Xerox is doing: if you go to this web site, www.LetsSayThanks.com, you can pick out a thank you card, add a message and Xerox will print it and send it to a soldier who is currently serving in Iraq. You can't pick out who gets your card, but it will go to some member of the armed services.

How amazing it would be if every service memember got a card this Holiday season thanking him or her for serving our nation. Please send a card. Send several. It is FREE, annonymous and it only takes a second. Forward this link on to your family and friends after you send your card. It will make you feel wonderful.

More In-Touch but Less Connected . . .

2006-11-26T17:58:00.000-06:00

Signs of the Times . . .
More In-Touch but Less Connected

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The next time you are driving look at the number of people on their cell phones. The next time you are at a Starbucks, or a Panera Bread or a Borders café look at the number of people on their computers. We are more in-touch than ever before, but paradoxically, we are increasingly isolated.

Lynn Smith-Lovin is a Duke University Sociologist and coauthor of a study titled “Social Isolation in America.” The study is a replica of one done 20 years ago. In only two decades, from 1985 to 2004, the number of people who have no one to talk to has doubled. And the number of confidants of the average American has gone down from three to two.. One quarter reported that they had nobody o talk to, and another quarter were only one person away from nobody.

People did report that that they were closer to their families. Husbands and wives and parents and their adult children may be closer. Our circles seem to have tightened and shrunk while going nuclear and familial. The greatest loss has been in neighbors and friends who will provide help, support, advice and connections to the wider world.

It's become easier to keep extensive relationships over time and distance by cell phone and email, but harder to build the deep ones in our backyards. In the virtual neighborhood, how many have substituted e-mail for intimacy, contacts for confidants, and phone or Facebook for face to face?

We may be six degrees of separation from any other person in the world and one or two people away from loneliness. Who can we talk to about ``important matters"? Who can we count on? As we search for tools to repair this frayed safety net, Americans can take poor, paradoxical comfort from the fact that if they are feeling isolated, they are not alone.

The good news is that the new traditional neighborhood may be one of those tools to repair the disconnectedness of our times. The principles of TND design put people together and help create conditions where community and connectedness can thrive.

Source: Adapted from the Boston Globe, June 30, 2006

Herb on the Radio . . .

2006-11-16T15:59:00.000-06:00

Herb on the radio . . .

KKAR 1290 AM Saturday morning, November 18, 2006 . . .

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This Saturday morning, November 18th, Herb will be a guest on The Real Estate Reality Hour radio call-in talk show with Steve Smithberg. Steve is a licensed real estate broker and home builder with Design One.

Each week The Real Estate Reality Hour explores topics of current interest and answers your questions about real estate. The Real Estate Reality Hour airs live each Saturday morning from 9:00 to 10:00 a.m. on News Talk Radio 1290 KKAR.

Tune in to KKAR at 1290 on the AM dial this coming Saturday, November 18th, at 9:00 a.m. to learn about What's New on State Street, the Omaha area's first new traditional neighborhood at 168th and State Streets.

The KKAR call in number is 342-1290.

KFAB 1110 AM Saturday, December 9, 2006 . . .

Herb's next guest shot on the radio will be on the Grow Omaha show which airs at 8:00 a.m. every Saturday morning on radio 1110 KFAB. Grow Omaha is hosted by Trenton Magid and Jeff Beals with Coldwell Banker Commercial World Group. Herb will be on the show Saturday, December 9th.

The KFAB call-in numbers are 558-1110 or 1-800-543-1110.

Call in and support traditional neighborhood development in the Omaha area.

Thanks,

Herb

The "Not So Big House" . . . A sign of things to come?

2006-11-10T17:35:00.000-06:00

Stylish Cottage for Katrina Country Is a Big Hit

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A well-designed home for under $50,000? This tiny house designed for the battered Gulf Coast will be sold by Lowe's, and is expected to draw buyers from all over.

A model home in Ocean Springs, Miss., that gives Katrina's displaced an alternative to trailer living is starting to take the country by storm.

The Katrina cottage -- with living quarters about the size of a McMansion bathroom -- is now appealing to people well beyond the flood plain. Californians want to build one in their backyards to use for rental income to help with the mortgage payment. Modestly paid kayakers in Colorado see it as a way to finally afford a house. Elsewhere, people envision building one so a parent can live nearby.

A new niche flying in the face of a "big house" trend, designers of these tiny abodes seem to have found a new housing niche. Some experts cite an interest by some Americans in downsizing their habitats, a reaction to the supersized home, and note the challenge of heating and cooling a big house at a time when family budgets are flat. Others note that changing demographics -- more empty nesters and single adults -- may mean a timely debut of the Lilliputian homes.
"It's resonating with people because it's a market that did not exist," says Marianne Cusato, a New York-based designer who drew up the plans for the Katrina cottage. "In the past, you had to go either to an apartment or a trailer."

Commercialization of the concept is limited -- but that is about to change. Late this year, perhaps as soon as this month, Lowe's, a national hardware and building-supply company, intends to begin selling the plans and materials for four models in 30 stores in the Gulf Coast region.

The "Lowe's Katrina Cottage" offerings range from a two-bedroom, 544-square-foot model to a three-bedroom, 936-square-foot house. The cottages will cost $45 to $55 per square foot to build, Lowe's estimates, meaning the smallest would run about $27,200 and the largest $46,800. Estimates do not include the cost of the foundation, heating and cooling, and labor.
"We're starting on the Gulf Coast, where the original idea came from, but as soon as we feel the logistics are worked out we could go national," says Cusato, whose Web site has received more than 7,000 inquiries since January. "We want to be sure that when we say it's available, we're 100% sure we can deliver."

A concept that could spreadIf Lowe's is successful, it's likely other companies will offer their own designs. "There is such a huge opportunity, when you talk about the number of houses that need to be built in Mississippi and Louisiana, that I think a lot of folks are looking at this type of concept," says Dan Tresch, director of governmental affairs at James Hardy Building Products, which provides the siding for Cusato's cottages.

One of those other companies won't be Home Depot, the Atlanta-based supplier of building materials. "We assessed the opportunity but chose to pass on selling them," says spokesman Tony Wilbert.

Although Lowe's has not started marketing the houses yet, the original Katrina cottage has been featured on television and in newspaper articles. As a result, Cusato gets queries every day from around the world. Some of the e-mails and letters envision the cottages as college dormitories, military housing, homeless shelters, zookeeper's offices and rental properties.

Among the recent inquiries was one from Keith Rogerson, a city councilor from Bridgeport, Conn. "We have lots that are too small for a … single-family, detached household, so the idea is to bring in these extremely attractive dwellings to provide affordable housing," says Rogerson. "We're also looking at reorienting the zoning so we can put them in clusters to stave off ghettoizing the city."

The Katrina cottage concept inspired Norman Bradshaw, a retired deputy sheriff in Tallahassee, Fla., to call Lowe's. He's thinking about moving to a farm in Georgia. "What I'm trying to find is something affordable in the $65,000-to-$75,000 range," says Bradshaw. "Right now, the only thing you can afford is a trailer, and they are so flimsy you can put your fist right through a wall." If Lowe's follows though with the original design, Bradshaw says, he'll buy one.

Urban planners and architecture critics are generally enthusiastic. "Designers have done a good job with toasters and cars, and now they have done housing -- and it couldn't have come at a better time," says Anthony Flint at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think tank in Cambridge, Mass. Architect Sarah Susanka, author of "The Not So Big House," calls it "a charming, tiny house with character."

The cottage, though almost doll-size, manages not to feel claustrophobic in large part because Cusato has included a wide porch. "If you live in a small house, you need a proper outdoor room," Cusato says. "In addition to making the house larger, it engages you with your neighbors."

Ready for hurricanes and add-ons Cusato's design also calls for steel frames and James Hardy's fiber-cement-board siding. It's rated to withstand a hurricane with 140-mile-per-hour winds. The siding makes it termite-resistant, noncombustible and immune to rot. One intangible aspect of the house: It is designed to be easy to add on to.

The idea for the cottage came during a planning session in Mississippi. Gov. Haley Barbour had asked Andreas Duany, a Miami urban planner with the firm Duany Plater-Zyberk, to participate in the post-Katrina Mississippi Renewal Forum. There, Duany challenged designers to come up with an alternative to the trailers from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Cusato's design was picked as the winning effort.

But the concept didn't really take off until January, when the cottage made its debut -- almost by happenstance -- at the International Builders Show in Orlando, Fla. Susanka was set to build a small, modular show house for the event, but her sponsor pulled out. Duany suggested that Cusato's cottage go in its place -- and it was an instant hit with developers, who clamored for the plans.

The house was then trucked to Ocean Springs, Miss., where thousands of people have explored its confines. Cusato sees the cottage as one way to help the region recover. "If you give people a decent place to live, they will want to settle in," she says. "The most sustainable thing you can do is build something that everyone loves and everyone wants to keep."

Source: Ron Scherer, The Christian Science Monitor, October 2, 2006

300 Million People on Our Way to 400 Million . . .

2006-10-31T10:58:00.000-06:00

How Will America Grow on Its Way to 400 Million Residents?

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The United States just crossed the 300 million population mark and this suggests that we consider what will happen as we head to the 400 million mark which we will hit some time around 2040.

Right now each person is taking almost 20 percent more developed space than 20 years ago. We can not continue our car-dependent land-use pattern on the way to 400 million people without acute environmental damage and heavy quality-of-life costs, reports USA Today writer Haya El Nasser, citing experts whose calls for alternatives have strongly resonated among the public especially this electoral season.

''We're going in the wrong direction right now. The rate of land consumption is twice the rate of population growth,'' points out Smart Growth America Executive director Don Chen. ''There's been a real change in the American consumer looking at how they live,'' observes Cambridge-based Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Public Affairs Manager Anthony Flint, author of This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America. ''We've been spreading ourselves out generously and thinly across the land because we could. Energy was cheap. It made sense to satisfy our longing for elbow room, wide open spaces, a sense of security and . . . affordability.''

Virginia Tech's Metropolitan Institute Co-director Arthur C. Nelson expects the next 100 million residents to add 73 million jobs, about 70 million housing units and 100 billion square feet of non-residential space, mostly in the major metropolitan areas. Unlike households in 1960, half with children, about 35 million of the new 40 million households by 2040 will lack children, which will increase the total percentage of households without children to three quarters. ''Their demands are going to be different,'' Director Nelson says. ''Suburban areas will have to transform themselves to meet the new needs.''

Still, he predicts that many households ''will want, will demand and will get their single-family detached homes on a lot,'' adding, ''Where it used to be 80 percent, it might slip down to 60 percent,'' which means that ''(w)e will never get rid of congestion, but we might be better able to handle it.''

Source: Adapted from USA Today 10/27/2006

Lower Housing Costs Offset by Commute Costs

2006-10-12T07:25:00.000-05:00

Lower Housing Costs Offset by Commute Costs

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Moving to an area with lower housing costs to save money doesn’t necessarily work for low-income households, according to a study by the Center for Housing Policy, a nonprofit research group.

The study looks at families with low to moderate incomes in 28 metropolitan areas. It found that transportation costs in places with cheaper housing are often so high that they wipe out savings from lower rent or mortgage payments.

For instance, the median house price in San Diego, at $613,000, is four times that of Dallas. But the study found that working families in San Diego spend 59 percent of their income in housing and transportation, only slightly more than the 57 percent they spend in Dallas. Families in Dallas spend just 26 percent of their income on housing, compared with 31 percent in San Diego, but Dallas families spend more on transportation.

The study found that housing and transportation costs combined eat up an average of 57 percent of annual income for "working" families, which the study defines as those with incomes of $20,000 to $50,000 a year. The combined costs ranged from 54 percent of income in Pittsburgh to 63 percent in San Francisco.

Source: Wall Street Journal, James R. Hagerty (10/11/2006)

This is more evidence of the effects of transportation costs on the family's budget and offers further support for the dense, walkable, mixed-use new traditional neighborhood.

Herb

Your New Urban Factoid of the Day

2006-10-11T11:36:00.000-05:00

Your New Urban Factoid of the Day, brought to you by Full Circle Ventures

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The average annual cost for the care and feeding of a midsize car in the U.S. in 2004 (assuming 15,000 miles driven per year) was $8,759.

Source: "Automobile Driving Costs, 2004," American Public Transportation Association.

Think about what would happen if a household were able to get rid of one car because it lived in a dense, mixed-use, walkable new traditional neighborhood.

The $8,759 annual expense to run a car is $729.92 per month. Today’s average rate for a thirty year fixed rate mortgage is 6.3%. At that rate, $729.92 per month will make the payment on a mortgage amount of $117,923!

Now consider what happens to a family’s ability to buy a home if, because they live in a new traditional neighborhood, they do not need one of their cars. They can afford to buy their home much more comfortably. They may choose to save that money or invest it. They may even choose to invest that money in real estate! If they choose to do so, they can buy a lot MORE home. Think about the implications to that family’s net worth when they spend that money on an appreciating asset rather than a depreciating one!

Yours for the dense, mixed use, walkable new traditional neighborhood,

Herb

U.S. Population Growth Drives Sprawl

2006-10-04T15:55:00.000-05:00

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"As the U.S. population tops 300 million, the country is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development a day, nearly four acres a minute."

"The sprawl is going to happen," says demographic trend-watcher Joel Kotkin. "You've got 100 million new people [since the U.S. topped 200 million in 1967]. They've got to go somewhere, and most don't want to live in the city. End of story."

Public opinion bears this out. Just 13 percent want to live in a city, 51 percent in a suburb, 35 percent in a rural community, according to a 2004 survey by the NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF REALTORS®. "

If you look at the survey data, even the nice cities are losing population," says Kotkin. "It's San Francisco, Boston, and Minneapolis, not just Cleveland and Philadelphia. The population growth of even the most robust cities is much less than the surrounding areas." The key question, says Kotkin, is, "Do we manage this growth in an intelligent way and figure out how to make it environmentally benign?"

What many see as the best alternative is to create something they call edge cities or micropolitan areas, galactic cities, or technoburbs – largely self-contained communities with jobs for local residents, who wouldn’t have to commute long distances."

Source: Christian Science Monitor, Brad Knickerbocker and Daniel B. Wood (10/03/2006)

Comment: One of the attractive things about greenfield new urban development is that the increased density and mixed uses utilizes the land much more effectively than single purpose, low density development.

The country is "is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development a day, nearly four acres a minute" Much of this can be attributed to low density, conventional subdivision development. As I pointed out in a September 15, 2006 post here, Stratford Park , a 160 acre conventional subdivision to the west of the new traditional neighborhood on State Street, has 393 lots or 2.456 lots per acre. By comparison, the 160 acre State Street traditional neighborhood is designed to have 939 dwelling units. At the density of Stratford Park, it would take over 382 acres to provide 939 dwelling units. Thus it would take 222 MORE acres than the new traditional neighborhood on State Street will have for the same number of dwelling units.

Another way to look at it is that the increased density of new traditional neighborhood saves 222 acres from having to be developed. With land in the U.S. being developed at the rate of 4 acres per minute, the new traditional neighborhood on State Street stops the national development clock for about 56 minutes. Not a lot in the grand scheme of things, perhaps, but it does reveal what could happen if more communities were created according to the traditional neighborhood development model.

Yours for the increased density of the TND,

Herb

If You Work from Home, You're Not Alone

2006-10-02T17:38:00.000-05:00

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"Nearly half of all U.S. businesses are run from home and most of these home-based businesses are run by women, says a new U.S. census report.

Of the nation's 16.6 million businesses, about 49 percent are home-based, according to U.S. Census Bureau figures. About 56 percent of women-owned ventures are home based versus 47 percent for men. Three-quarters of U.S. businesses are self-employed individuals with no paid employees, the study says.

Of all black-owned ventures, 53 percent are home-based versus 52 percent for whites, 45 percent for Hispanics, and 28 percent for Asians, the study reports.

Professional, scientific, and technical services accounted for 19 percent of all home-based businesses. That was followed by construction at 16 percent, and retail trade at 11 percent. Real estate, health care, and social assistance also are popular with home-based businesses.

The report was based on information collected from more than 2.3 million business owners. The data is part of the bureau's 2002 Economic Census, conducted by mail among a random sample of U.S. businesses."

Source: The Miami Herald. September 27, 2006

This is EXACTLY why live work units are so popular in new traditional neighborhoods all around the country. In fact, when I asked PlaceMakers, the master planning firm for the new traditional neighborhood at 168th and State (see www.PlaceMakers.com), what mistakes TND town founders make, I got two answers. One was, "The town founders do not believe us when we tell them how many live/work units to include in the neighborhood." NOW I get it. I had no idea that nearly half of all U.S. businesses are home-based. Astounding really. In the new traditional neighborhood, you truly CAN walk to work . . . just by going down stairs!

Yours for living, working, playing, learning all in one neighborhood,

Herb

The Not-So-Big House

2006-10-01T19:29:00.000-05:00

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Here are two great articles on the upsurge in the Not-So-Big House, embodied in the Katrina Cottage.

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1002/p01s01-ussc.html and

http://www.cnu.org/news/index.cfm?formAction=press_release_item&press_release_id
=77&amp;amp;CFID=12865200&CFTOKEN=640623

These small houses are one answer to housing affordability. They are made affordable by virtue of their small size and not because of inferior materials or construction techniques. They can be added on to as the owner's financial condition changes. And when you think of the ancillary dwelling unit, think of a Katrina Cottage over a garage and you will get the idea immediately. These are very flexible and offer many different live and work options. They can be occupied by the teenager or college student or bounce-back kid, by the mother-in-law (aka "granny"), by whole family (an entertainment, media room), by guests, or by the home business. They can be rented out for rents that by all reports exceed the amount of mortgage payment necessary amortize the added loan used to build them. These types of "not-so-big houses" are one way the new traditional neighborhood achieves higher densities. You can look for ancillary dwelling units throughout community as well as small houses in the bungalow courts in the new traditional neighborhood on State Street.
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Whats New on State Street?

2006-10-01T01:16:00.000-05:00

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To find out about Omaha's first new traditional neighborhood (also called a "TND" which is short for "traditional neighborhood development") be sure to stop by www.WhatsNewonStateStreet.com. Here you will be able to visit day by day the planning charrette for the new community at 168th and State Street and read a variety of articles. You can also down load a presentation on the benefits and principles of traditional neighborhood development (see Day One). The final presentation that was given on the closing day of the charrette may be found on Day Six. In between you can learn a lot about what is going to happen on State Street as the Omaha's first new urbanist greenfield development takes form.

Will Speak for Food

2006-09-24T10:58:00.000-05:00

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If your group is in search of a speaker on New Urbanism and Traditional Neighborhood Development, contact me by email to herb@FullCircleVentures.com and we will arrange a date for a PowerPoint presentation in words and pictures of all the benefits and principles that make communities like the new traditional neighborhood on State Street so good for us. All you have to do is feed me.

New Herbanism Comes to Omaha

2006-09-23T18:37:00.000-05:00

This is the first posting to this blog.

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The Omaha area's first new traditional community designed according to the principles of New Urbanism is on the drawing board. The neighborhood's founder is me, Herb Freeman, and this is my blog, New Herbanism. The place is 168th and State Street in Douglas County, northwest of Omaha, Nebraska. Watch this space for periodic postings on the topics of new urbanism, traditional neighborhood development, real estate development in the Omaha area, and the progress of the project at 168th and State; all collectively called "New Herbanism."

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