The design of our cities and suburbs tends to detract from the quality of our lives and increase the negative impact we have on the environment. Although many people have little choice on where they live, we support the increase of what is being called “new urbanism,” revival of our lost art of place-making that promotes the creation and restoration of diverse, walkable, compact, vibrant, mixed-use communities. Incidentally, the ‘new’ in ‘new urbanism’ is a bit of a misnomer. It is not a new technology or invention so much as it is a return to traditional neighborhood design--the way cities and neighborhood were designed before the onset of suburbia (roughly speaking, the 1950’s). It’s the alternative to suburban sprawl, and a convenient remedy to some of our most daunting problems like oil-dependence, climate change, traffic jams, and even obesity. As Christians we call for development policies that will not adversely affect the poor and the vulnerable, or constrain the growth of small businesses. Repressive regulations and limits on liberties, as well as wasteful government subsidies for leapfrog development, are frequent contributors to the lack of residential choices, which is one reason we as conservatives support policy changes in this area.