• We need outward growth—but not sprawl

    The New York Times recently endorsed sprawl as a solution to the housing crisis, but the writer is confused about the outward expansion of cities.
    So The New York Times supports sprawl. Their land-use reporter, Conor Dougherty, wrote a piece : “Why American Should Sprawl: The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth—but to fix the housing crisis, we need more of it.” The headline is superimposed over an image of vast Dallas...Read more

  • Village plan adopted, first of eleven

    The mixed-use plan for Greensboro, North Carolina, establishes a network of small blocks and the first of a series of neighborhoods for new development northwest of the historic city.
    Greensboro, North Carolina, City Council adopted a 79-acre new urban village plan in March. Christopher Village is the first of 11 neighborhoods on a thousand-acre site about 5 miles northwest of the city center. Dover, Kohl & Partners designed it for developer David Couch. The development...Read more

  • Downtown Daybreak opening a mixed-use urban center

    The 200-acre downtown for the largest new urban community culminates a plan that grew out of a regional planning effort to reimagine the Wasatch Front metropolis.
    Daybreak in South Jordan, Utah, is the largest new urban development with 30,000 residents and is opening what may be the biggest new urban downtown to date. As of 2025, Downtown Daybreak features a new Triple-A ballpark for the Salt Lake Bees, an amphitheater, a performing arts center, a large...Read more

  • Lessons from a successful suburban center

    The Village of Providence shows how you can create a strong place out of nowhere in two decades.
    I recently visited the Village of Providence in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Urban Guild Summit . Providence is a Charter Award-winning traditional neighborhood development (TND) designed in the early 2000s by DPZ CoDesign, and it is just a nice place to be. While there for three days, I had no car...Read more