• Ten political benefits of walkable places

    This is fourth in a series of articles on the advantages of building human-scale cities and towns.
    There are many benefits to building walkable places and complete neighborhoods, backed up by research and common sense. A research report called Cities Alive by Arup, a multinational engineering and design firm, enumerated 50 advantages of walkable places. This article, the fourth in a series, is...Read more

  • The power of central social districts

    Main Streets, downtown cores, and neighborhood centers play a vital social role in American communities. The argument for Central Social Districts is that this social role should be nurtured distinctly for urban centers to succeed.
    Public Square editor Robert Steuteville interviewed economic development expert N. David Milder of DANTH, Inc., on Central Social Districts. Milder wrote a paper that was recently published in the American Downtown Revitalization Review . This is Part 1 of a two-part interview. RS: What is a...Read more

  • Vision of a town: Celebration of the physical planner

    US Route 20, the longest road in the nation, travels through many interesting and historic places in New York State. One that you have probably never heard of is Cazenovia, a town of 7,000 people, founded in 1793. Cazenovia is a kind of place that you stumble on to, and, if you are an urbanist, you...Read more

  • New Urbanism in America’s heartland

    Uptown Normal is helping to bring a small downtown back to life, providing an economic boost to a town in Central Illinois.
    When I was tracking neighborhood-scale new urbanist projects in the early 2000s, Uptown Normal in the Town of Normal, Illinois, was just breaking ground. Planned by Farr Associates of Chicago, Uptown Normal was a different kind of traditional neighborhood development than I was used to seeing at...Read more