• A unified small developer vision for urban revival

    A coalition in Flint, Michigan, works with many hands toward rebuilding a neighborhood from the ground up.
    As Flint, Michigan, declined from an industrial city of nearly 200,000 people to less than 100,000 people in 60 years, abandoned homes and blight became a big problem. Also, trust in the public sector and institutions declined, a situation that worsened in light of Flint’s notorious recent lead-in-...Read more

  • Recapturing retail market share for downtown

    One key aspect to Missoula's downtown master plan involves making the city center a retail destination once again.
    The revival of downtown living in Missoula, Montana, offers an opportunity to open new retail stores and reverse some of the lost market share that occurred since the middle of the last century, according to retail expert Robert Gibbs, a consultant on the city’s downtown master plan. Downtown once...Read more

  • Big questions for Amazon

    Amazon chose urbanism for HQ2, but with urbanism comes responsibility.
    Earlier this month I wrote a piece about the Charter Award-winning plan for Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, that established a code and vision in 2010—enabling that area to become more walkable and urban as Amazon’s new headquarters is built. That piece analyzed half of Amazon’s East Coast HQ2...Read more

  • Amazon site is Charter Award winning plan

    In Arlington, Virginia, a plan and code for Crystal City entitled the new development capacity that lured Amazon—and also calls for transformation to walkable urban.
    Amazon’s long-awaited second headquarters decision was announced on Tuesday, split between Crystal City in Arlington, Virginia, and Long Island City in Queens, New York. Amazon promises to bring 25,000 high-paying jobs to each location in the next 10 years. Both sites are expensive real estate,...Read more