It's Sunday morning, and the Jones Family is out of orange juice.

Thanks to city zoning restrictions, rather than walking leisurely to the corner market, the "man of the 2,340-square-foot house" slips into the car, exits his closed-end subdivision, gets on a high-speed arterial road without sidewalks and drives 2.1 miles to the strip mall, anchored by a large grocery store.

Unfortunately, it's a pattern that happens millions of time everyday in the United States. Can the cycle ever be broken?

The good news: yes.

Today, there are more resources than ever to help local planners overhaul "everything separate" zoning restrictions--holdovers from the days of smoky factories and Eisenhower-era orderliness.

One of the most talked-about "manuals" to adopting New Urbanist (NU) and Traditional Neighborhood Design (TND) principles is SmartCode. Created by Miami-based urban planning firm Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), SmartCode is an off-the-shelf template of zoning language and guidelines that cities can integrate into their master plan. One section, for instance, illustrates the proper scale of street lighting as the zones progress from rural to urban core; another provides guidance on vehicle lane configurations.

DPZ dropped the licensing fee for SmartCode in 2005, essentially providing cities with a free head start to better neighborhoods. (To view and/or download SmartCode in PDF format, click here).

Pedestrian-friendly neighborhoods not only can improve your quality of life, they can improve your health. A study commissioned by King County, Washington found that a "modest 5 percent increase in neighborhood walkability was associated with 32 percent more minutes per week of physically active travel and a lower Body Mass Index (BMI) equal to about 1.5 pounds. Residents of these neighborhoods also traveled 6.5 percent fewer vehicle miles per capita, and enjoyed lower corresponding emissions of nitrogen and Volatile Organic Compounds (VOC).

The results, published in the Winter 2006 Journal of the American Planning Association adds to the growing body of evidence that single use, low density land use can actually be hazardous to your health. (Click here to view a PDF of the study).

There's never been a better time to crack the code and help create better neighborhoods. Here are some other valuable resources that can help you and your community usher in more practical, mixed-use development:

Congress for the New Urbanism
Chicago-based non-profit works with planners and developers to help them adopt the principles of New Urbanism.
http://www.cnu.org

New Urban News
An informative newsletter that covers developments in New Urbanism and smart growth.
http://www.newurbannews.com

The Town Paper
Informative articles and links about Traditional Neighborhoods.
http://www.tndtownpaper.com

Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ)
Land planner and creator of SmartCode mentioned in the story. Their website also contains many great resources.
http://www.dpz.com

(Read an excerpt of the book by Andres Duany, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, and Jeff Speck titled Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream by clicking here)

The Preservation Institute
Berkeley, CA organization that believes in old-fashioned neighborhoods, among other things. They maintain an extensive links page on New Urbanist and TND resources:
http://www.preservenet.com/politics/NewUrb.html#Designers

Streetscapes Online, Volume 4 <