• A new urbanist visits YIMBYtown

    YIMBYtown is a movement, functionally adjacent to CNU, that focuses on how to build more housing in urban places. YIMBY and CNU have complementary roles in urbanism.
    Imagine a parallel universe where something like CNU exists, but it was not founded by architects, and attracts relatively few architects, urban designers, or planners. YIMBYtowners have embraced much of the new urbanist canon, and, like CNU, seem to dominate the discourse—but each struggles to...Read more

  • Turning a neglected site into four-sided mixed-use

    A development in Edina, a first-ring suburb of Minneapolis, hits a lot of metrics of sustainable planning. Nolan Mains was built on a 2.8-acre site that was previously nearly 100 percent impervious surface—mainly surface parking lots—in a commercial district. Completed in 2019, Nolan Mains has 100...Read more

  • Never mind NIMBY and YIMBY–it’s time for ‘QUIMBY’ urbanism

    We need a major rethink of gentrification and affordability challenges if we’re going to get anywhere. “Quality In My Back Yard” may offer a path.
    Note: Public Square editor Robert Steuteville is on leave from late September through the last week of October, 2022. In the meantime, we are offering some popular articles from 2022 in addition to new content. The urban scholar Jane Jacobs was famous for pointing out that if we don’t understand “...Read more

  • A “15-minute city” underway in the Highlands

    Tornagrain in Scotland sets a British example of planning the “15-minute city.” Designed in 2006 and delayed by the 2008 worldwide recession, Tornagrain has been in vertical construction for the last six years near Inverness, the largest city in the Highlands. Architecture Today , a UK publication...Read more