• We need a vision for auto-jitneys and livability

    The primary task for autonomous vehicles is placemaking, not engineering. If new urbanists don't create a vision for how AVs can support neighborhood life, nobody will.
    Every week brings news of another place where auto-jitneys are being deployed. We in the New Urbanism need to develop a vision of how that emerging technology will support neighborhood life. If we don’t do it, nobody will. We are the ones who can shift the focus from the technology to the places it...Read more

  • Ten steps toward autonomous urbanism

    Here's a playbook for municipal leaders and citizens on the road to smart city technology.
    Today’s typical vision of the future city, how we travel, and how people interact physically and virtually is automated and mobile. As one example, Ford released its Cities of Tomorrow campaign to sell this type of “smart” city. This vision is largely defined by the private sector and technology...Read more

  • Will the feds handcuff cities on automated vehicles?

    If federal laws like the AV START bill foreclose the opportunities of cities and states to intelligently regulate AVs, communities themselves will lose the steering wheel.
    Editor's note: Number 1 of Jeff Speck's 10 rules for cities about automated vehicles is "be afraid," and this article reinforces the message that cities must be in control of their own destinies when it comes to AVs. Congress is currently considering the AV START bill , which would be the first...Read more

  • Social hubs for auto-autos

    New Urbanism has an opportunity to influence where self-driving vehicles take us—which could be social hubs in a polycentric city.
    Transportation moves people to destinations. Then it moves the destinations. When railroads were first introduced, a few visionary railroad tycoons made fortunes making Chicago a national hub. When the middle class took up cars, a few futurists like Norman Bel Geddes realized that they could sell...Read more