Smart growth, holistic cities ... and New Albany as conceptual kindergarten.

As pertains to any consideration of "smart growth" in the context of New Albany, it is vitally important not to forget the old joke about the musician who begins as a bright young up-and-coming artist, and elects to skip the next few career phases in favor of graduating directly to "too drunk to play."

Accordingly, we're somewhere in the vicinity of puberty, pre-legal drinking age.

But dude: Check out our aquatic center.

Link courtesy of JG.

Kaid Benfield’s Blog: Moving beyond "smart growth" to a more holistic city agenda (Switchboard)

... I say that it is time to become more ambitious and holistic in our thinking about cities, towns and neighborhoods. In the interest of being provocative and starting a conversation, I propose a list of ten questions that every community should ask in order to identify ways to improve. These questions embrace smart growth, to be sure, but they don’t stop there. Here they are:

1 Are neighborhoods fully hospitable to residents with a range of incomes, ages and abilities?

2 Does the community respect nature, integrating natural areas and systems into regional planning and neighborhood design?

3 Do buildings and infrastructure take advantage of resource-efficient design and management practices?

4 Do the community design and social structure encourage healthy living and well-being?

5 Is the overall metropolitan or community development footprint discernible and no larger than necessary?

6 Does the community include public spaces of beauty, character, and utility?

7 Are there convenient, safe, affordable and efficient transportation choices?

8 Does new development use land efficiently, with appropriate attention to the context?

9 Does the community respect and enhance important local conditions, resources, and culture?

10 Does the community encourage collaboration in planning and development?