2007 has been a good urban year, capped off by my son Ellis learning to say the word “downtown.” He points at the tall buildings in downtown Minneapolis and says “dun-tun!” I can’t think of anything that brings me more pride.

Looking back on 2007, I learned a lot in my work and travels. Many of these are highlighted in other posts on this website, but this post will go back and fill in a few holes as to what I’ve been up to this year.

I traveled a fair amount and saw some great urban places. Even with trips to the Netherlands, San Francisco and New York, perhaps my most enjoyable couple of days was a January weekend spent tromping around in the rain getting to know the beautiful park systems in Pittsburgh and Louisville.

I had heard good things about both cities, but neither Pittsburgh nor Louisville were on my radar until I got an assignment to write an article about parks conservancies. I was drawn to both cities for precisely the fact that they are often overlooked compared to the better-known Olmsted parks in New York City or Boston, for example.

I enjoyed Pittsburgh immensely. I joined some locals on a regular Saturday morning walk through Highland Park sponsored by the Pittsburgh Parks Conservancy. Driving between parks I was struck by the variety and vibrancy of many of the neighborhoods, many tucked away in the hills and valleys of Pittsburgh’s rolling river topography. All the while, Devotchka’s “How it Ends” album played in the CD player, and I will always associate the two.

I had the parks in Louisville (designed by Frederick Law Olmsted) entirely to myself that sodden January Sunday. The rain was more intense and my walks shorter than in Pittsburgh. While I spent more time observing the parks from various picnic shelters, I was equally impressed. My CD of choice in Louisville was The Hold Steady’s “Boys and Girls in America,” good party music that lifted my spirits on a damp day.

Louisville is worth a visit, and has a visionary urban leader in Mayor Jerry Abramson. If you are ever in Louisville, check out the ribs at Mark’s Feed Store and Carmichael’s, a lovely independent bookstore, both of which are on Bardstown Road.

While I’m at it, check out the new album by Lucinda Williams, called “West,” as well as “Neon Bible” by Arcade Fire and “Magic” by Bruce Springsteen.

Well, I did visit an Olmsted Park in New York for that parks article. Not Central Park, the obvious choice, but rather Prospect Park in Brooklyn. Prospect Park is known, among those “in the know,” I suppose, as the park where Olmsted did all the things he wanted to do in Central Park. I was fortunate enough to get a guided tour by the park conservancy’s president, Tupper Thomas, on a gorgeous Saturday morning following a snowstorm. People were out enjoying winter with gusto, skiing, sledding and frolicking in the snow. It was a wonderful behind the scenes look at improving a park that is very much loved by its neighbors.

Highlights in my consulting and market research work included the Ford Plant redevelopment planning process in St. Paul. I teamed with my old firm, Colliers, to provide market research analysis for the 135-acre site. The planners, led by EDAW, worked with the city and community to come up with five development scenarios for the site after automobile manufacturing ceases there in 2008. It turns out Ford will continue to make the Ranger there until 2009, but if and when manufacturing ceases there is wonderful potential for the development of a great urban neighborhood in St. Paul.

I also worked on behalf of Hennepin County in their legal battle over the condemnation of the land on which the new Twins stadium is being built. Effectively the county won, and taxpayers will foot the bill for less than half of what the landowners wanted for the site. Although I helped play a small part by providing market analysis, the real credit goes to the appraisers hired by the county, whose thorough work was recognized by the judge in the end. Ultimately, I look forward to opening day 2010, and I hope that not only is the Twins stadium a great urban place but that the surrounding area is redevleoped in an attractive manner. There is much to do on that front.

I’ve also been working with my neighborhood board to improve the quality of life in our little piece of the city. I serve as board secretary and have high hopes for redevelopment in our neighborhood. 2008 will be an interesting time as we fight to continue funding of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program (NRP) in some way while still trying to do our work and spruce up the 38th Street Corridor and the light rail station areas at 38th and 46th Streets. There will be much to write about in the coming months. Stay tuned.

Al Gore has been chided recently for the “incovenient truth” that his home in Tennessee is huge and therefore contributes to global warming. The reasoning goes that he, of all people, should have a smaller, energy-efficient, even carbon-neutral home and ride a bike to his speaking engagements around the world, right!? Honestly, I’ll let him off the hook if he makes thousands of others change their ways or impacts policy decisions on the issue. Still, it got me thinking, so I asked my colleagues if they practice what they preach. After all, if our industry is promoting transit usage, smart growth, green buildings, walkable cities and other solutions to save the planet, what do we all do in our private lives? The results are very interesting, and symbolic of just how much work there is to do.

Responses covered the gamut - everything from hybrid cars to rain gardens. Michael Leccese, Director of ULI Colorado, commutes most days via bus from his Boulder home to his downtown Denver office. According to him, that is 240 miles per week not spent using gasoline and emitting pollution. Walking and biking cover many of his errands in his mixed-use community in Boulder.

Company owners often choose a transit-friendly location for their offices. Bob Close of Close Associates explained that they moved their offices three years ago to downtown Minneapolis, and are a half block from a light rail station. The result is transit usage among his staff has gone from the exception to the norm. Many of his staff happen to live near the light rail line in Minneapolis, and several even bike to work in the summer.

Several of my colleagues around my age, particularly in Minneapolis, report with no small amount of guilt (myself included) having moved from a dense neighborhood in or near downtown to a more residential neighborhood farther from the core. This is often following a marriage and/or childbirth. Many of us offset this move my biking or taking transit to work, but we are a little disappointed that so many of our other trips are made by car.

Still others simply live downtown. David Motzenbecker, who is with Oslund and Associates and president of the Minneapolis Planning Commission, recently bought a condo in a renovated building in the Minneapolis North Loop neighborhood. He typically walks seven minutes to work, or to any number of nearby clubs, restaurants, theaters, and parks.

Closer to home, Tim Rood of Community Design + Architecture has a solar hot water system in his house. Adam Arvidson of Treeline in Minneapolis replaced most of his lawn with vegatable gardens and perennials, and is planning a rain garden next summer. Carol Coletta managed to start a recycling program in her building in Chicago, which she says is hard to do in that city despite its numerous recent green achievements. Others remodel and improve insulation, keep the thermostat low or rarely use the A/C if they have quality shade in the summer months.

Other respondents mentioned buying and eating locally, which keeps money in the local economy. That is a whole other piece of the sustainability puzzle, but all of this goes to show that a vast number of our colleagues make some very conscious choices about a huge range of issues that affect our built environment and the energy required to sustain it.

Of course, plenty of our colleagues admitted to wishing they drove less, flew less, took shorter showers, etc. I guess urbanists are human, too! Still, the responses were heartening to me, and I hope that our personal decisions can inspire the work we do to make for a more sustainable future. We shape the built environment, and we need to keep improving our practice so more people can indeed walk the walk.

Now for me. I talk the talk, but do I walk the walk? Since I call myself an urbanist, I feel somewhat compelled to back it up. Ideally, I’d live “sustainably” in a condo or urban townhome with my family, located in or near downtown, within walking distance of a park, a daycare, a school and all my shopping needs, and have rail access to the airport. And there would be three hour train service to Milwaukee to visit the inlaws (some day!). Well, reality dictates that I compromise some of those ideals, but here we go.

For starters, I live with my wife and son in Minneapolis, one block south of the 38th Street light rail station. Riding the bus downtown with my grandfather as a little boy and living and working in London for a short period as an adult, where I chose between the bus or the Underground, instilled in me a certain fondness for transit. As a result, I not only have never actively looked for a job outside downtown Minneapolis (except London), every house and apartment I have lived in (in Minneapolis, Madison and London) have been close to a transit line.

In 2004 I gave our Realtor a map of the Minneapolis light rail stations with half mile rings drawn around them. My wife and I were looking for a house and our only criteria was it had to be within a half mile the train, and preferably within a quarter mile, or a comfortable five minute walk. We looked at a couple decent houses before finding a wonderful, simple one and a half story home with hardwood floors built in 1939. We knew at first sight that we wanted it, and since the housing market had not yet cooled, we bid above the asking price to ensure we got it. Since it was March 2004, and the light rail line (the first in the Twin Cities) was to open in June 2004, I believe we were the first “transit speculators” in the Twin Cities.

The proximity to light rail is paying off in spades. It is a four minute walk to the station, and from there a 15 minute ride to downtown Minneapolis or 10 minutes to the airport. Literally I can print my boarding pass, leave the house, catch the train, and if there is no security line, be at my gate within 30 minutes. When we moved in, I still worked downtown, and because I was able to take the train to work, I filled my gas tank about once a month and had a very noticable dip in mileage driven. Just telling people that fact as gas prices rise generates a lot of raised eyebrows. Relatives of ours that thought living by the train was a novelty suddenly registered the possible savings in doing so. In fact, I have several friends and colleagues that also live near a station stop. We are all living proof that living near quality transit service reduces mileage driven and the corresponding cost of driving. We are proving that there is demand in the real estate market or living near transit.

We still own two cars, but drive them a total of fewer than 10,000 miles per year, 4,000 of which are highway miles for vacation or to visit family. With no small amount of sadness, I parted ways with my 195,000-mile 1989 Toyota Camry this year. It averaged just under 30 miles per gallon, and we replaced it with a 2003 Honda Civic, which averages 34. Since it has a CD player and sunroof, I really don’t miss the Camry much anymore, and the increase in mileage is very much appreciated.

But I am human. I will admit to a certain respect, no, fondness for some trucks. Take my father-in-law’s GMC full-size pickup, for example. Now there is a real man’s truck. It’s way too big for our needs, but for hunting, fishing, and towing a boat it is sure nice. Occasionally I rent a Ford Ranger or Jeep Liberty while on business trips, particularly if I don’t have too many miles to drive. I like the Liberty because of its small size and rugged feel. It fits in to small urban parking spaces well, but it is also a truck, meant to be taken off road. Trucks don’t need all those frilly gadgets on the interior - since when does a truck need a DVD player or seat warmers!? But alas, real urbanists don’t need trucks - I shudder to think of the hell I will catch if I were to buy a Liberty. But face it, at 20 MPG it gets roughly the same as most minivans and not much worse than a Subaru Outback or Forester.

To offset my future potential Jeep Liberty carbon emissions, I bought a Euro-style Trek bike this summer, as well as a two-kid Burley trailer! This is exciting. I had always biked for excercise, but my trip to the Netherlands inspired me to buy a commuter bike complete with a bell, chain guard, generator-powered headlight, huge fenders, and a mini-lock that clamps the back wheel so you can run inside for a quick errand and not need to lock the bike to something. With the grid of streets and distance to most stores of over a half mile but less than three, our neighborhood is well suited for biking. Occasiaonally I bike to a business meeting as well as towing Ellis around on errands. I even go on the occasional bike pub crawl.

Our neighborhood is well suited for biking but also walking. Our house gets a Walkscore of 72. If you haven’t used Walkscore, please try it. It is a mapping system that takes your address and spits out a ranking on a scale of 1 to 100 of the amenities - shops, restaurants, parks, libraries, etc. - that are within walking distance. I recommend Walkscore for home purchases or deciding on an apartment, but also planning where to stay on vacation to make sure your hotel isn’t out in the sticks.

A little more about our neighborhood. Notable walking destinations are my beloved Tillie’s Bean coffee shop (assuming it reopens), a fantastic rib joint called Ted Cook’s 19th Hole (the best ribs I have ever had), A Baker’s Wife (the best bakery on earth), a family-owned Ace Hardware and a wonderful new little neighborhood pub, Buster’s on 28th. Buying local keeps more money in the local economy. I am quite proud to say that our neighborhood has almost entirely local and family-owned businesses, and I do frequent many of them.

A local grocer or food cooperative more suited to our tastes is in order, as well as a pharmacy. A major transit-oriented development is planned across from the 38th Street station and two blocks from us, but retailers have not yet been announced, so here’s hoping for a grocer.

As for our house, it was built in 1939 but is a lot like a typical postwar one and one-half story home - three bedrooms and one bath. We don’t have excess space, but also don’t have to heat and cool a huge house. We reinsulated the upstairs, but haven’t done anything particularly green on the inside or the outside. We plan to grow strawberries next year and hopefully other food in the future. I suppose a rain cistern and rain garden are also in order. There is also the half-baked notion of replacing our single-car garage with a double containing a granny flat above.

I try to walk the walk. I also bike and take transit for some, but certainly not all of my local travel. There may be better locations in which to live that result in a smaller ecological footprint, but we like our neighborhood, as it has good amenities but also good value. We have a good local elementary school and beautiful playground nearby, and those things are not always easy to find in cities. There is room for improvement, and I suppose being aware of the impact of our decisions and striving to do better is a step (literally) in the right direction.

Inspired by exploring Nicollet Island in Minneapolis, a tiny historic community near downtown on an island in the middle of the Mississippi, I decided to make a trip down the river to Memphis. I hadn’t spent much time in Memphis, and was interested in exploring downtown and Harbor Town, a new urbanist community located, like Nicollet Island, in the middle of the mighty Mississippi.

Unlike Huck Finn, I flew down the Mississippi, landing in Memphis on a warm Friday afternoon as most people were heading home from work. As I approached downtown I was compelled to stop at Tom Lee Park, a broad sweep of open space with a view of the river and skyline. The late afternoon sun shone on the water. I am always struck at how wide and powerful the Mississippi is downstream. In Minneapolis it is in a picturesque gorge. In Memphis it is broad and fast moving.

I checked in to my hotel and walked to Beale Street. I hadn’t been to Memphis in 15 years and saw only Beale Street at that time. There are few places I know of that have so much live music in one area. For that, Beale Street is a treasure. Unfortunately, it was still too early in the evening for music, and the scene consisted mostly of a bunch of guys standing outside the various restaurants imploring people to come in for some variation of authentic food and music - mint juleps, ribs, soul food, soul music. There was no disinguishing one establishment from the next. The only song I heard anywhere was Mustang Sally piped through a PA. All I wanted was ribs and a beer at a fair price. I found a firefighter who was monitoring the Beale Street crowd and asked for directions. He told me to avoid Beale Street and check out a rib joint called Rendezvous. I thanked him and was on my way.

Rendezvous was fantastic. I had a rack of ribs accompanied by a couple of cold lagers and was quite pleased with myself in a bloated sort of way. After dinner I wandered through the Peabody Hotel. I love lobbies in beautiful historic hotels. They are so ornate, but buzzing with happy rich people checking in, arriving back from a big day, or drinking and mingling at the bar. I stood there taking in the scene before returning to my modest and less ornate hotel for the night.

In the morning I ventured out to the loft district, south of downtown to see how the urbanites live. I first passed through Peabody Place, a relatively recent shopping mall in the center of downtown. It is dreadful. It is largely an interior mall, turning its back and sucking the life off the sidewalks surrounding it. I’m sure it was proposed as a way to bring back downtown as a destination, but seems to have achieved the opposite.

Luckily south Main Street and the area around it were a bit more true to urban form. There was a mix of renovated buildings, gift shops, coffee shops, a farmer’s market, the Amtrak station, lofts, and the Memphis Streetcar running down the middle of it all. I quite liked that. The farmer’s market was fledgling - more gifts than produce - but nice. I ate breakfast at the Arcade restaurant. It has been there since the 1920s and I highly recommend it.

Afterwards I wandered in to the silent Amtrak station, aware from a recent presentation on intermodal facilities that it was possible to take a train in to Memphis and catch the trolley in to the core of downtown, though there are no signs it involves stepping out of the station and actually seeing the trolley. In other words, the only people who know this are those who saw that presentation on intermodal facilites. The operation of the historic streetcar in Memphis is not predicated on its stop near the Amtrak station. The problem with Amtrak is just that - there is no compelling reason to ride it, outside of Boston, New York and DC. This was evidenced by the timetable hanging prominently on the wall. It was dated 1960! I couldn’t find a more recent timetable anywhere. Worse, in most cities and towns Amtrak stations are located far from anywhere important or any means to get somewhere important except to be picked up by a relative with a car or by taxi - if you can find one. Luckily things are beginning to change on this front, but alas, that is a topic for another day.

I strolled part way up Main Street to the Lorraine Hotel, the place where Martin Luther King was killed. The death of King was of course tragic, but so is the story of decline in the area around the Lorraine, which has only very recently seen any economic activity at all. The renovated lofts and coffee shops in the area sit somewhat uncomfortably next to this memorial, although the more recent memorial park between Main Street and the Lorraine is a pleasant urban open space.

Harbor Town is one of the many developments on Mud Island, an island that formed in the Mississippi early in the 1900s. It was reinforced much more recently and the Harbor Town development began there in 1980s. But before venturing there, I stopped at Mud Island Park, which features a half-mile long interpretive recreation of the lower Mississippi, complete with flowing water. Each tributary (the Ohio, Missouri, Arkansas and Upper Mississippi) gets a mention and a map, and water flows from these in to the little river itself. You can walk along its course, hopping from side to side and reading signs about its history, and along the way the grid of every major city is shown. The “river” eventually empties in to a one-acre Gulf of Mexico at the tip of the island. It is very much a “man conquers river” type of display, with no mention of the ecological problems of the river or the dead zone in the gulf. Nontheless, it is a wonderful interactive display and I loved it.

On to Harbor Town. I parked my car and had a walk around. In the 20 or so years since it was started, it has matured well. Trees are now tall and some of the gardens were beautiful. The yards, parks and little town center felt lived in. It also feels like somewhat of an enclave. It is so close to downtown yet removed from the problems of the city. I spoke to one resident who agreed, and was actually looking to move in to downtown because there was more action there in terms of restaurants and clubs.

The town center provides a really good example of the scale at which retail and services can survive. With nearly 1,000 housing units the town center supports a small grocer/deli, a pizza place/video rental/bar, dry cleaner, a couple other retailers and assorted offices. Perfect. I ate lunch at the pizza place/video rental, predictably named Movie & Pizza Company. I noticed most people picked up pizza’s and many of them arrived not on foot or by car but by golf cart. I commented to my waitress and she said because the Movie & Pizza Company is the only place that serves drinks in Harbor Town that she sees a lot of tipsy guys driving home in their golf carts.

The best part of the town center is Miss Cordelia’s, the grocer/deli. The layout and attention to detail is remarkable. The deli entrance is at the corner facing the street and sidewalk, and the grocery entrance is at the back facing the shared parking lot (shared with the adjacent apartments). Pedestrian amenties abound. Sidewalk tables are provided in front of the deli, and in fact the sidewalk actually passes through the sidewalk seating. The grocery entrance faced the parking lot but was near the street and sidewalk for pedestrian access, and has bike racks, newspaper racks, landscaping and a shaded area under an overhang with a cash machine, tables, a porch swing, ceiling fan, and even a bird feeder.

What was impressive about Harbor Town is the town center is well planned. Retailers combine businesses under one roof - grocer, deli and catering, and video rental, pizza and a bar. Plus, they are well suited as far as access and traffic is concerned. You can get there by car or on foot. Together, this makes the area successful. It also results in a sort of community center - clearly people know each other and it is a place to meet.

After lunch I walked through the neighborhoods. I marveled at the lush yards and small parks. A few people were out enjoying the day. The homes and yards seemed to be all very well tended. Harbor Town is one of the best examples of new urbanism I have seen. It has aged well and seems lived in and not contrived, particularly its town center.

I barely scratched the surface in Memphis. There are certainly some great up and coming neighborhoods in and around downtown, and although the city faces many challenges, it is a great place. For starters, the entire stretch of Main Street hold much promise. I look froward to returning some day to actually take in some live music that forms the soul of that city.

There is something for everyone in “Sustainable Urbanism - Urban Design With Nature,” the new book by Doug Farr that tackles exactly what the title implies. Backed by an impressive range of research, tables, charts, it is a comprehensive look at how to make our development pattern more sustainable.

Farr is the founder of Farr Associates, a Chicago-based planning and architecture firm whose work is notable for its dedication to sustainability. The book is rooted in his firm’s decision to renovate their offices pilot project for the United States Green Building Council’s (USGBC) Leadrship in Energy and Enviornmental Design (LEED) standards for commercial space. He was struck that the LEED rating system gave very little credit for location, despite the fact that his office was literally steps from the “el” and commuter rail. Certainly more credit should be given to an employer deciding to locate in a place where most, if not all employees could arrive by train or bus.

Farr’s effort to lead the committee to create the LEED for Neighborhood Development program is the outcome of that process. LEED-ND is currently being piloted and rewards development for green buildings but also green location. His book in many ways reflects the vast array of knowledge and research that went in to the LEED-ND process so far.

In Sustainable Urbanism, Farr manages to throw in everything but the kitchen sink, including a discussion of a sustainable way to process wastewater that drains out of that kitchen sink. That is the point - there is something for everyone here. Many of you will be familiar with the urban transect and the diagram for a complete neighborhood. But Farr manages to include a discussion about buying local, food production and neighborhood-scale wastewater treatment.

True to the title of Part Three, Emerging Thresholds of Sustainable Urbanism, practitioners from across the industry can use this book not only as a jumping off point for making their practice sustainable, but also identifying the relationship to other sectors of development. Part Four provides case study examples of developments, most of which are built, that prove how various aspects of sustainable urbanism indeed work. Farr is also not afraid to point out challenges, many of them in case studies, and freely admits that this is hopefully the first of many drafts of this comprehensive look at sustainable development. It may be up to the rest of us to write future editions!