• Genuine change or lipstick on a pig?

    A well-known new urban project has begun to reshape the relentless sprawl around it, but communities shouldn't wait for that to happen.
    A criticism of Silicon Valley planning, housing, and community culture led to a critique last week of Santana Row , a prominent new urbanist development in San Jose, California. Santana Row is better than the usual Silicon Valley sprawl, but does it represent real progress—or is it merely dressing...Read more
  • Glenwood Park Atlanta brownstones

    The neighborhood that hope built

    Glenwood Park, Atlanta, on a former industrial site, was built to restore confidence that humanity can create wonderful, walkable, loveable places.
    The site of a former concrete recycling center two miles east of downtown Atlanta is now a vibrant, mixed-use, traditional neighborhood development (TND). Its design is not only architecturally-intriguing, but also environmentally sustainable. Its persuasive pitch and later economic success led to...Read more
  • Pearl Brewery Redevelopment

    An industrial shell becomes city's gathering place

    At the turn of the millennium, the 26-acre Pearl Brewery in San Antonio was abandoned and desolate—a collection of empty buildings and pavement with only five trees. Now the ambitious Pearl Brewery Redevelopment is an economic and social powerhouse, drawing an average of more than 10,000 visitors...Read more

  • Freeway fill-in feeds urban revival

    The noose around Rochester's downtown has been partly removed, breathing oxygen into the repopulation of the city center.
    First completed in 1965, the Inner Loop of Rochester, New York, was designed to wrap like a noose around downtown. Combined with the rolling demolition of urban renewal, the Inner Loop served to lure and siphon residents out of the city center—and Rochester’s downtown population plummeted. “We...Read more