In Rosemary Beach, Florida, everything is a 5-minute walk away—secret lanes and boardwalks lead to the town square or to the beach. Life is easy, as if the town flows with the contours of the land. Covering an area of 107 acres, Rosemary Beach is a walkable, mixed-use development with its own town hall and post office; the town features 16 parks and playgrounds and four community pools. All of this holds a certain allure to residents and visitors. Even during the economic downturn, people are paying high dollar to be a part of the community.
But Rosemary is more than just a town set on a beautiful beach. From its inception, it was meticulously designed according to the principles of New Urbanism. “Home values in walkable neighborhoods are measurably higher than those that are not, even when other relevant factors are controlled in the analysis,” says Kaid Benfield, director of the Sustainable Communities and Smart Growth Program in Washington, D.C. Brian Anthony Hernandez wrote in the Christian Science Monitor: “New research suggests when people ‘love’ the culture of their towns, economic prosperity follows. In a three-year Gallup survey of 26 U.S. cities, researchers learned the communities with highest levels of resident attachment — a person's passion for where he or she lives — also had the highest rates of GDP growth over time.”
http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/content/view/47355/
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