Greenville Ave. residents, you are officially fuel-efficient! Says so in the latest of Forbes magazine's never-ending litany of lists, this one headlined "America's Most Fuel-Efficient Neighborhoods," which appeared at the end of last week. And just how did the mag arrive at this result? Very tricky math, along with an assist from the Center for Neighborhood Technology, which"classified a neighborhood's low transportation costs as the metro area mean transportation costs minus one standard deviation." Which I totally don't understand, as I'd been told there'd be very little math on the test. In short, you apparently don't drive much and spend about $745 a month on transportation costs, which puts Greenville Ave. at No. 9 on the list, between the Woodward Corridor in Detroit and Houston's Montrose. (Try here for a better explanation.)
Greenville, commonly split into upper and lower sections, is distinct from many northern Dallas suburbs because residents commuting to downtown can typically get the job done in 10 minutes. Public transit ridership, at 11%, is tenfold the rate in Arlington, thanks to a centrally located Dallas Area Transit Station that shuttles people to virtually anywhere in the city. Those cowboys living in McMansions near Dallas-Fort Worth airport drive nearly double the annual mileage of Greenville households.Also cited in the study was the Congress for New Urbanism, which, on the same day, noted "Housing Market Turmoil and Rising Gas Prices Reveal Lasting Value of Urbanism." Me, I think it's just because of Corner Market. --Robert Wilonsky
