It not only makes sense but has a ring of poetic justice to it too: maybe the American dream is what is indeed killing America.

Suburbia. Suburban sprawl. The Suburban?

The Congress for the New Urbanism (who I love with all my green heart!) set up a contest earlier this year for a video that could convincingly promote “walkable, neighborhood-based development”. Let me tell you, the winner created a remarkably convincing presentation.

(“Built to Last” by First + Main and Paget Films.)

So, back to the question: what can you do about the environmental crisis right now?

Need some milk from the store? Take an evening stroll. Dry cleaners? Find one within a mile or two and take the bike. The less you drive, the more money you save, the more calories you burn. But most importantly, the less you fossil fuels consume and the less pollution you pump into your air.

What can you do about it in the long term?

When you are looking for that perfect apartment, let Walk Score help you score the perfect home. That’s right – you type in your potential new address and let it tell you how walkable your life will be. Local bars and restaurants? Library? Grocery store? The Walkability Score will then rank if your potential home is a “walkable” one, but also tell you how your address rates compared to others in the area.

It’s just that easy. As you go about your day, choose well. Take a walk, get some fresh air, and save the planet.

___________________

Photo courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net.

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After reading this article, I stopped to calculate our car’s efficiency. We have a ’99 Ford Mustang with a V-6 engine I got back in 2002 at a ridiculously great price despite the car being in near-mint condition. This is our sole vehicle. We get an average of 21 mpg around town, which is pathetic, I know. More on that in a later post.

I found a handy-dandy Google gadget that calculated this for me; at 21 mpg and the local regular gas at $3.25/gallon for regular unleaded, it costs me $1 to get 6.46 miles for gasoline alone to my great and unhappy surprise. 6.46 mpd. Oh. My. Goodness. Looking at it this way made me consider some of those regular trips:

• A trip to my parents place some 35 miles away, round trip: $12
• My local Trader Joe’s: about $1
• Daily commute for my Husband to get to work, come home for lunch, back to work and home again that evening: just under $5. ($2.38 is for the round-trip home is still cheaper than any lunch he can buy and it gets him out of the office, a homemade meal and an hour and a half with me!)

That really does make one rethink driving to the corner market for a gallon of milk.

Better still is the actual cost of driving a mile, not just for gasoline, but tires, maintenance, insurance, etc. AAA estimates that for my vehicle, for example, costs me $0.618 per mile. Let’s look at that relative to my list:

• A trip to my parents place some 35 miles away, round trip: $43.26
• My local Trader Joe’s: $4.33
• Daily commute for my Husband to get to work, come home for lunch, back to work and home again that evening: $17.30

Ouch!

And that’s only the monetary damage to my wallet – that’s not including any carbon emissions and various ways that cars pollute. Sometimes, it takes a pain in the wallet to fix a pain in the environment.

Just a thought.

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