• Bicycle-oriented development, a promising regional growth strategy

    The Razorback Greenway is already influencing growth in Northwest Arkansas, but this may be only the beginning. Other regions are taking similar steps.
    In Bentonville, Arkansas, I recently witnessed bicycle-oriented development (BOD) in action. The Razorback Greenway is a 40-mile multi-use trail, mostly completed in 2015, that connects all of the major cities in the region. At first, the Greenway was just a recreational trail. Then it morphed into...Read more

  • New Urbanism boosts social connections and health

    An academic survey of a Florida traditional neighborhood development shows higher social engagement and better health outcomes.
    The value of New Urbanism in promoting social connections is gaining recognition among social scientists, not least because of a growing body of evidence demonstrating that social connections are highly important to overall health and well-being. The latest example is a recent academic study of...Read more

  • How roundabouts helped to build a downtown

    Carmel, Indiana, has been called the “roundabout city.” It has also built a major downtown from scratch in the last quarter-century. These two facts are related.
    Carmel, Indiana, a city of just over a hundred thousand people, has eliminated nearly all of its traffic lights—a remarkable achievement—and replaced them with 158 roundabouts that calm traffic and keep it flowing on a network of suburban arterial roads. Carmel is a “ boomburb ,” defined as a city...Read more

  • Playa Vista: High density, happy residents

    A quarter century after the iconic Los Angeles development was launched, a community survey shows high levels of resident satisfaction.
    Playa Vista in Los Angeles was one of the most ambitious and artistically stunning early New Urbanist plans, designed in a 1989 charrette by two of the movement's founding firms. A major developer, Maguire Thomas Partners, called DPZ CoDesign, led by a young Andres Duany and Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk...Read more