(Posted March 12, 2007)

HUNTINGDON, Pa. -- Anthony Flint, a former journalist for the Boston Globe and author of \"This Land: The Battle Over Sprawl and the Future of America,\" will lecture at Juniata College on \"Political and Cultural: New Urbanism/Smart Growth/Green Building/Backlash,\" at 7:30 p.m., Monday, March 19, in Alumni Hall in the Brumbaugh Academic Center on the Juniata campus. The lecture is free and open to the public. Flint became intrigued by urban planning issues during his 20-year career as a journalist (primarily at the Boston Globe), as he covered planning and development, transportation, architecture and urban planning. He also wrote a weekly column on urban design and public spaces. In his book \"This Land,\" Flint visited suburban subdivisions across the country to study how different areas of the country approached development and highlighted some interesting trends, including homeowners having to move back into cities as gasoline prices rise and heating costs go up. Many homeowners are looking for semi-rural living on half-acre plots of ground where they can erect a 2,500-square-foot home. Flint points out that the commutes from these areas and the energy required to heat and cool such massive homes will eventually make living in that lifestyle prohibitively expensive. Flint says the future migration of homeowners may be back into urban centers where mass transit resources are available and amenities such as entertainment, restaurants and cultural attractions are close at hand. Flint earned a bachelor\'s degree from Middlebury College and earned a master\'s degree at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He also has served as a Loeb Fellow at Harvard University and was a visiting scholar at the Harvard Design School in 2005. He worked for a year in 2006 as education director at Massachusetts\' Office for Commonwealth Development, the state agency that coordinates housing, transportation, energy and the environment. Currently, he serves as public affairs manager for the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, a think tank based in Cambridge, Mass. His articles have appeared in the Boston Globe Sunday magazine, the Hartford Courant, Planning Magazine, Landscape Architecture and Architectural Record.

Contact April Feagley at feaglea@juniata.edu or (814) 641-3131 for more information.