Kaid Benfield

Kaid Benfield is director for sustainable communities and smart growth at The Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, DC.

I have my own blog on land development and community issues and enjoy contributing here, too, since there is so much common ground.

Trained as a litigation attorney, I now do research, writing, and advocacy on behalf of sustainable development. I like to write about the intersections between development, community, and the environment.

I believe that those of us in the environmental movement have an obligation to do better than we have in the past to articulate pragmatic solutions for sustainable development and to speak up in favor of them. I am unabashedly pro-development when I recognize that it provides beneficial alternatives to sprawl or conventional, unsustainable land use. We have wonderful examples from enlightened developers, architects, and planners, and they deserve to be celebrated as the environmental heroes that they are.

I won’t hesitate to criticize UNsustainable development, and I also won’t hesitate to criticize those who cloak themselves as environmentalists for selfish, anti-environmental ends. But I hope to keep the tone more positive than not.

ARTICLES IN SHELTERFORCE since jan 08

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