The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, developed by CNT and its collaborative partners, the Center for Transit Oriented Development (CTOD), is an innovative tool that measures the true affordability of housing. Planners, lenders, and most consumers traditionally measure housing affordability as 30 percent or less of income. The Housing + Transportation Affordability Index, in contrast, takes into account not just the cost of housing, but also the intrinsic value of place, as quantified through transportation costs. Click here to explore how this looks in 52 metropolitan areas in the US.

The "walk score" uses the proximity of various businesses - grocery stores, drug stores, movie theaters - to calculate the walkability of neighborhoods. Allows visualization of this aspect of accessibility and may help diagnose what works to promote this kind of development.

In many ways, Amsterdam and other Dutch cities have fostered urban environments that provide a wide range of transportation choices for residents and visitors. The result is vibrant cities and greatly reduced automotive use - not a cure-all for carbon woes, but a great step forward for climate viability and urban livability.

Lincoln Institute of Land Policy senior fellow Armando Carbonell writes about the importance of land use and transportation decisions to a coherent energy and climate policy.

The North Jersey Transportation Planning Authority held a symposium to identify issues as it prepares to write its Regional Transportation Plan for the next 25 years. Post Carbon's Daniel Lerch spoke at this even about how peak oil is forcing planners and policymakers to change their assumptions about future transportation and land use patterns.

Vancouver, B.C.'s EcoDensity policies have been the subject of much debate, but they've become a fixture of the city's political and planning landscape, even after the term of the mayor who promoted them.

Developed as a toolkit, "Getting Density Right" was written for land use and design professionals, as well as government officials and community leaders. The book describes the successful methods used in jurisdictions across the country to enact policies, programs, and regulations that support compact development, including codes, zoning, development types, density and design strategies, financial incentives, and planning programs.

Creating what urban planners call '20-minute neighborhoods' was a recurring theme among residents and city officials during the launch of the Portland Plan. Participants focused on the idea of 20-minute neighborhoods, where residents can reach most of their day-to-day needs within a 20-minute walking distance.

This "Vision Plan for the City of Buenaventura" analyzes probable implications of Peak Oil on the City of San Buenaventura, California, and the surrounding region, and describes a vision for post-Peak Oil planning that responds to these implications by building upon positive trends that are already taking place. This vision is supported by planning and design guidelines, as well as a phased implementation plan. The regional vision emphasizes preservation of natural resources, concentration of the developed footprint, and intra-regional collaboration.

Gas prices in Sydney, Australia, are soaring - but they're not hurting everyone evenly. A recent study has found that residents of the western ring of suburbs are spending, on average, three times what their inner-city counterparts are spending on fuel. Insufficient public transit infrastructure gives residents of these suburbs little option but to keep paying, at a cost to other parts of their lives and to the community.