• Nolli map as a tool for small developers

    The Nolli Map is the most underutilized tool in the designer/developer tool box. It provides an intimate understanding of place.
    Small scale incremental developers are concerned with enhancing the character and economic vitality of neighborhoods through flexible, human-scaled, mixed-use buildings. In other words, a small developer’s focus is in building places the way they have been built for centuries; piece by piece...Read more

  • Want some Walk Appeal with your tacos?

    Here's how great walking environments benefit eating and drinking establishments (and vice-versa).
    Restaurants in places with good Walk Appeal are inherently less fattening than unwalkable ones because meals come with embedded exercise. I just walked to my favorite restaurant and back, and burned 113 calories. That might not seem like a lot, but 113 calories each day for a year is enough to lose...Read more

  • Dynamic urbanism in semi-traditional cities

    Cities that blend old and new are helping to define urbanism in the 21st Century.
    US cities can be divided into three categories based on physical characteristics. I have written about “traditional cities,” with streets built mostly before 1950, and “sprawling cities,” which grew big during the “age of sprawl” from 1950 to 2010. In between these two extremes are “semi-...Read more

  • Sense of place is real

    “Sense of place” is not some nebulous, mystical idea. Sense of place is the emotional or psychological reaction to "place," as shown in the graphic above, created by Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). Communities and neighborhoods with good physical form evoke that psychological...Read more