“Moving forward, we need to live closer to where we work, take transit more often than not, and strengthen walkable neighborhoods that meet needs locally.”

—Kathryn Tholin, CEO, Center for Neighborhood Technology

“The creative class is demanding the option of walkable urbanism. These creative class workers need to cluster. And the big thing from an economic point of view is that if you don’t give the market the walkable option that they want, they’re going somewhere else. And if you’re in your 40s and 50s, your kids are going to go someplace else.”

—Christopher Leinberger, author of The Option of Urbanism, Investing in a New American Dream

New urbanist neighborhoods with their pedestrian oriented design and promotion of effortless socializing are a boon for parents. Critics that charge new urbanist neighborhoods won’t attract families because they don’t have acreage sized yards are quite mistaken, as my neighbors and I can attest.

— Petra Spiess, resident of the new urbanist neighborhood of Bradburn Village, Colorado.

If a parent wants to pack a piece of fruit in a child’s lunch, if a parent wants to add some lettuce for a salad at dinner, they shouldn’t have to take three city buses, or pay some expensive taxi to go to another community to make that possible.

—First Lady Michelle Obama, announcing the Healthy Food Financing Initiative