• Enabling a diverse Southwestern county to grow and prosper

    Doña Ana County, a culturally rich but economically challenged part of New Mexico, is staking its future on walkable communities.
    The beauty of Doña Ana County, with the Organ mountains and the Rio Grande, the fields of chile and orchards of pecans, is stunning. Yet many of those who live and work in this landscape are challenged economically—almost 26 percent of the residents live in poverty, and a quarter of the population...Read more

  • Practical confessions of an urbanist pilgrim

    After 12 days of walking the Portuguese Camino, the importance of many urban planning and development concepts—from the urban-to-rural Transect to balanced growth—became abundantly clear.
    In order to understand places, built environment professionals and real estate developers need to also understand the places between, and practice on-the-ground, inter-urban, and inter-settlement walkability. This approach is an essential way to anticipate the context of a given site, using the “...Read more

  • Great idea: The rural-to-urban Transect

    The New Urbanism brought the environmental transect methodology into planning and development of human-scale, complete communities. Now the human habitat can be analyzed as a continuum with the natural world.
    In celebration of the upcoming CNU 25.Seattle , Public Square is running the series 25 Great Ideas of the New Urbanism. These ideas have been shaped by new urbanists and continue to influence cities, towns, and suburbs. The series is meant to inspire and challenge those working toward complete...Read more