Opinions On A Car-Free Times Square from ANIMALnewyork.com on Vimeo.

A couple of highlights…

Take a look at the post from weburbanist.com!

Find more photos like this on Mixson

1.  Davidson, NC.  Ok, this isn’t actually a TND – it’s a whole entire town, which is even better.  I spent four years there, at Davidson College, so I can vouch for them: the city takes its planning quite seriously, and has maintained an authentic small-town demeanor despite the rampant development that was going on when I left in 2006.  They have a great affordable housing initiative, lovely old neighborhoods, a really cute downtown, and a bicycling master plan in the works.  Sidewalks are plentiful, and hundreds of kids walk to Davidson Elementary and Davidson Middle School every day.

2.  Serenbe, in Palmetto, GA.  Home to its own organic farm and horse stables, Serenbe has merged agricultural values with New Urban design.  The community has a luxury inn and gourmet restaurant, which uses the farm’s produce, in addition to its residences and businesses.  One of Serenbe’s most exceptional qualities is the amount of land that the founders are conserving: 70% of the 900 acres will be preserved as green space.  Though Serenbe’s already gotten tons of local and national coverage, the community is still in its early stages, and promises much.  I’m interested to see how Serenbe affects the area’s transportation patterns; will most residents commute to Atlanta, 32 miles away?  Will the neighborhood draw growth towards it?

Another point of interest: my old roommate, Mary Kathryn Wyle, just finished an 8-month stint at the Serenbe farm and has a wonderful blog describing her experience, as well as all things to do with farming, cooking, and food in general: The Raw and the Cook.

3.  Verdae, Greenville, SC.  This massive development (1100 acres) has been heralded by some as the next I’On of Greenville…who knows?  It’s got a retirement community (which means that several generations can live closely to one another, even if the elderly are in assisted living), a 300-acre TND, commercial space, a 20-acre park, and townhomes and apartments in the works.  From what I can tell, Verdae is an attempt to create a city center outside of downtown Greenville, which has undergone some mega revitalization; if it works, Greenville will continue to be a model for citywide planning and development.  This is definitely one to watch in the next few years.

4.  Sky, near Clarksville, FL.  While I’m not crazy about the “eco-luxury” tagline – I think I can assume that means that there will be no affordable housing here – Sky is another community, like Serenbe, that is taking sustainability quite seriously.  Gardens, both private and community, as well as orchards and vineyards, are planned to supply most of the food that Sky residents consume.  Homes are designed for both passive and active solar, and are equipped with cisterns to catch rainwater.

5.  Cellars at Betty’s Creek, NC.  The website doesn’t tell me exactly where in NC this neighborhood is, but it’s somewhere near Asheville, in the western mountains.  Another conservation development, 500 of the 600 acres are being placed in an conservation easement and will be open to all residents of the community.  Some killer amenities come with owning a home here: 10 cases of wine per year from the community’s vineyard; unlimited access to the produce and flowers  from Betty’s Creek gardens; free guest accomodation in a restored 1820s lodge; and, of course, roaming rights over all the conserved land.

Have you heard of other innovative communities in the area?  Let me know – post them here!

Hang Nga Guesthouse, Vietnam.  Fun because it’s like a scary wizard’s house who has a giant giraffe for a pet.

The Stone House in Portugal.  Fun because it looks like a hobbit-house…only way bigger.

The Mushroom House in Cincinnati.  Fun because it looks like it has eyes.

The Kettle House in Texas.  Fun because it makes me think of Mother Goose rhymes – but only when I ignore the rust stains.

The Cob House in Vancouver.  Fun because it could belong to an elf or another type of small person.

House Attack in Vienna.  Fun because that house appears to be, structurally, entirely superfluous.

The Kansas City Public Library.  Fun because books are my favorite thing in the world and how cool to walk into one.

And now for my LEAST favorite in the whole list of 50:

The Manchester Civil Justice Center, home to the courtrooms of Manchester, UK.  It is eminently NOT fun because it looks like something out of 1984.  Like the Ministry of Peace or the Ministry of Love…futuristic, cold, and designed to impress upon the looker/entrant absolute authority.  That’s what I get, at least – the project description by the architectural firm that designed it says the opposite, though: “From the exterior, it signals and literally displays the accessibility of the courts.”  Just shows that you never know what people will think, no matter how hard you try to convey something.

The Village of Joy website, where these building pictures came from, has all kinds of cool things on it, like 20 Unusual Churches, and Amazing Graffiti Art by Bansky, and more – take a look!

We’ve done a few posts on this topic in the past, as cool or bizarre tiny houses make their tiny ways across our radar screen – there’s the Tumbleweed Tiny House, the “Greensburg Cubed” experiment, the 409 s.f. backwoods cabin, our own one-day-only (Earth Day that is) mini-Mixson house.  Then of course there’s the small furniture: the Doublespace bed, Casulo Mobile Furniture, and so many more.  So, in the spirit of the holidays – and New Year’s resolutions, which we know will always include “downsizing” and donating all one’s accumulated junk to Goodwill – here are some of the coolest little houses I’ve found:

From top to bottom, and left to right: A 10′ x 10′ cabin from tinyhouses.net

I LOVE the little green house.  These are by Ross Chapin.

Not exactly a house, but it still rocks.  Read about these Microflats.

This one’s from Hatch.

Is there an Ewok in there?  Seriously though, it’s amazing to see how a home can blend into the landscape once the right angles are gone.

And finally, what would a post about tiny homes be without a mention of Jay Shafer’s classic Tumbleweed Tiny House?  You can also read about one Tumbleweed tiny house devotee’s experience building her home here.

So maybe in 2009, start throwing out some of that extra, heavy, old, junky stuff you never use more than once a year.  We have the perfect place for you to do it, too: at the Mixson Marketplace.  You won’t believe what other people have to get rid of…

And here are a few of the welcoming Bread, Salt, Wine ceremonies (“Bread, that this home may never know hunger; Salt, that life may always have flavor; and Wine, that joy and prosperity may reign forever.”)

Salvador Bahia – a beautiful seaside city, with a colorful historic district that would have been much more fun without the countless street hawkers, and random people tying ribbons around your wrist, then demanding to give you a city tour.  That was the less-great part of our week there.  However, other than the overabundance of people, the historic area (called Pelourinho) has been very well preserved, and forms a strong centralized gathering place for the city.  There were tons of live music and sidewalk cafes, museums, shops…anything and everything.

That huge building is an elevator, which takes people between the Upper and Lower cities; other than that, the buildings are all original.

Salvador has also done an amazing job of preserving their beach front – rather than sell off beachfront real estate to the highest bidder, as we have a tendency to do here in the US, they’ve constructed a wide pedestrian avenue that runs from one end of the city to the other, all along the seaside.  As long as you’re within three or four blocks of the coastline, you’ve got a perfect view out to the ocean.  We could learn something here!

Puerto Iguazu, Argentina: home to the awe-inspiring Iguazu Falls, Puerto Iguazu is a little mountain town that basically survives on tourism from the waterfalls.  Not much to say here except that their bus transportation from the town to the national park is excellent and fairly cheap.  Also, the town itself has managed to evade colonization by any global chains, so it still feels pretty authentic.  Oh, and the national park here was the first place we saw any attempt at recycling or composting, so that was pretty exciting.

Las Cataratas de Iguazu…just because they’re so amazing

and the organic/inorganic bins

Buenos Aires comes next…