The blog in review, 2009: my favorite posts

I enjoy writing this blog as much as anything I’ve done since coming to NRDC almost three decades ago.  This past year, I’ve written about 250 posts, and I am honored to have so many regular readers. It’s pretty hard work, to be honest – and it’s gobbled up lots of evenings and weekends - but it’s also a labor of love. 

If I have to choose, the following dozen posts are my favorites of 2009, in chronological order:

• Transforming the market for development location (January 30, 2009).  No words could make my case as well as do Alex MacLean’s amazing aerial photos.  We can’t allow the goal of “market transformation” to be so wimpy that it applauds green design even in sprawling locations and other places where development inherently harms the environment.
• In sustainable communities, architecture, and preservation, does beauty matter? Should it? (February 24, 2009).  This was the first of a number of posts I wrote in 2009 arguing that environmentalists and preservationists need to be more discerning.  It also gave me a chance to cite Steve Mouzon’s work, I think for the first time.  I’ve since become a fan.
• Virginia adopts innovative smart streets rules (March 23, 2009).  I originally picked up this story from the Washington Post, and somewhat to my surprise it became one of my most popular posts. 
• Walmart, McCain forge new alliance to fight sprawl (April 1, 2009).  Although it should have been obvious, and I planted several clues, almost no one got that it was an April Fool’s joke!
• Agri-sprawl: "farming is the new golf" (April 21, 2009).  I know many of my fellow new urbanists disagree with this one, since agricultural suburbanism seems to be quite the rage in some circles.  But I continue to believe that we are best served by working to keep development off prime farmland, not invading it. 
• Considering the role of density in smart growth (April 28, 2009).  Sometimes we get a little simplistic about the various elements of smart growth.  Density is important, but it doesn’t often need to be high density, and it never is sufficient.
• Revitalizing Over-the-Rhine (Part 1) (June 2, 2009) (Part 2, June 8; Part 3, June 15; Part 4, June 23).  If I had to pick only one favorite blog subject of the year, it would be this series, which I really loved writing.  What a great, promising neighborhood. 
• They are stardust. They are golden. But are they right about “shrinking cities”? (July 2, 2009).  I heard that this one got some people so agitated that they retained a communications specialist to figure out how to deal with people like me.  I had no idea they were so wedded to a strategy that I still think could benefit from additional thought and improvement. 
• Smart growth must become more demanding, more community-oriented, and greener (literally) (August 18, 2009).  I spent several days researching and writing this post, which picks up where the “beauty” and “density” posts above left off.  I believe it to my core.  I got some great reactions but, sadly, the only one I got from DC-based smart growth advocates (even within NRDC) was in private, that “we shouldn’t care about design.”
• What makes the Jardin du Luxembourg work so well? (September 16, 2009).  This was an attempt to keep the blog alive while I was on vacation, and it was great fun to write. 
• Vegas on steroids: meet Dubai (September 23, 2009).  This one was also fun, albeit in a different way.  What a mess, and, lofty claims notwithstanding, green gadgetry is not going to fix it.
• “If you don’t have safe streets, all the light rail lines in the world aren’t going to save your city” (November 30, 2009).  Inspired by Lee Epstein’s guest post about smart growth and city schools, I wanted to acknowledge another important issue that we should care about. 

Thanks so much for indulging me.  NRDC's Switchboard is and will remain my home base, and I am extremely grateful to my colleagues on our communications staff who have encouraged me and make the site hum.  But I also cross-posted some of these, and others, on a few very good additional sites that have been kind enough to host my work along with that of some terrific other writers.  They include DailyKos, Huffington Post, Sustainable Cities Collective, Rooflines, and CNU Salons.  Please check them out. 

Next: my picks for the top smart growth stories of 2009.  There will be some overlap with these, but less than you might expect.