I recommend reading this blog post — called “Smart growth must become more demanding, more community-oriented, and greener (literally)” — from Kaid Benfield, the director of the Smart Growth Program in Washington, DC. He makes the case, with photos, that density is not enough, we need to insist on density, diversity and design. “We in the smart growth movement need to become much more discriminating in what we support and what we don’t,” he writes. “In particular, we must stop applauding density per se and start advocating what my friend David Crossley, president and founder of the great organization Houston Tomorrow, calls the right kind of density — a built landscape that respects and improves upon its neighborhood instead of overpowering it.”