• A towering proposal for Portland’s Pearl

    I don't often write about skyscrapers, but this proposal includes smart urban design moves.
    Portland’s Pearl District may get five million new square feet of development, including two towers—one 970 feet tall—in what is called the Broadway Corridor Plan. This project is interesting because it would extend the Portland tiny block pattern and the city's iconic “park blocks.” It also would...Read more

  • A suburban town revitalizes incrementally

    Parsons Alley activates abandoned properties, creates a popular and lively new public place, and attracts businesses that appeal to young professionals.
    As downtowns and urban neighborhoods thrive across America, leaders and citizens outside city centers have begun to ask, “How do we reinvent the suburbs?” Moreover, how can this be done in an incremental way that doesn’t require a large transformative project? Major projects are hard to come by and...Read more

  • A radical mixing of cars and people works as planned

    The recently opened nine-block development in Southwest DC is the largest expanse of "shared space" in the US.
    When the Wharf, a new development in Southwest DC, opened recently, it instantly became the largest expanse of "shared space" streets in the country . Over the past few weeks, it seems like these streets are largely working as they were designed . In a shared space, also known by the Dutch name...Read more

  • Vital little plans: Jane Jacobs in the age of global capitalism and rent seeking

    After all these years, Jacobs's thinking still contrasts starkly with the planning and economic orthodoxy of assembling large sites for master development and subsidizing the likes of Amazon.
    Jane Jacobs’ seminal book The Death and Life of Great American Cities shaped a generation of designers and activists to think of cities as places of exchange and variety rather than as machines for living. Her later work about economies of cities and of nations was equally challenging to orthodoxy...Read more