A "polycentric" region is a network of compact developments (centers) that are connected with each other through high-quality transportation options. As the antidote to sprawling suburbs, compact centers can encourage all the things that sprawl discourages: public health, environmental sustainability, social cohesion, and economic diversity. But how can metropolitan planning organizations ensure that their regional plans will actually meet these goals? Polycentric development has been… Read More

The Wasatch Front is a rapidly growing metropolitan area situated in a region with natural features that extraordinarily limit growth. The Wasatch Front Mountains constrain growth on one side while the Great Salt Lake and the Oquirrh mountains constrain the other. Among the nation’s worst winter inversions occur along the Wasatch Front, whereby high-pressure weather systems trap the air, and all the pollution added by humans, in the valley. The inversions produce red air quality days and… Read More