Today Senator Barbara Boxer, the environment committee chairperson, announced that her committee will begin work on the transportation bill, using the House version as a template. According to DC.Streetblog.org: "Boxer described today's hearing in her panel as "the kickoff" of the upper chamber's drafting of new legislation governing U.S. road, transit, bridge, port, and rail policy........But lawmakers and industry lobbies have a long way to go before they can sing from the same hymnal on…

Walk 21 is an international organization dedicated to making communitie more walkable around the world. The website has several papers on walking from various fields, ranging from engineering to sociololgy. The home page reads:

"Walk21 exists to champion the development of healthy sustainable and efficient communities where people choose to walk. Through the Walk21 Conference series and the International Charter,…

Rural communities seem to be forgotten in discussions of the social determinants of health-- believed to be critical to reversing disturbing mortality/morbidity trends in chronic disease. There is a sense that small clusters of inhabitants scattered across the nation's landscape equals zero options to intervene. The Aspen Institute's Roundtable on Community Change advances the argument that the land on which we live should not be neatly lined-off by density factors. The…