• Fayetteville: The ‘regenerative fabric’

    The largest city in Northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville is managing growth by incremental development that is regenerating the city’s urban fabric.
    As Northwest Arkansas continues to absorb regional growth pressures, Fayetteville offers an example of how an established city can evolve by strengthening what already exists. Fayetteville feels different from Bentonville because it is different. For communities grappling with how to grow without...Read more

  • An accidental urban entertainment district

    Lexington’s Warehouse Block is the outcome of 40 years of incremental development. It could be a replicable model for cities to recycle old commercial districts into social centers over time.
    Randy Walker moved his electrical contracting business into a disinvested industrial building in Lexington, Kentucky, 40 years ago, and started buying nearby abandoned buildings and fixing them up. The revitalization steadily expanded into the 10-acre Warehouse Block , an urban entertainment...Read more

  • How could Complete Streets policies be more effective?

    The Complete Streets movement has largely failed in practice, but a focus on networks and context could make it more effective.
    In a 2011 planning advisory board meeting for a county where I lived, I delivered the exciting news about New York State’s then-new Complete Streets Act, which “requires state, county and local agencies to consider the convenience and mobility of all users when developing transportation projects...Read more

  • Not quite urban, an ‘intentional neighborhood’ breaks ground

    Polestar Village brings a health and wellness focus to Radburn-like community that is centered on a community garden.
    Today I highlight a project that is not New Urbanism. It is a hybrid between NU and conventional design. Polestar Village , scheduled to break ground in February in Fort Collins, Colorado, is described as “semi-urban.” “We call it an ‘Intentional Neighborhood’ and it will include a walkable Village...Read more