• Downtown expansion for Texas suburb guided by vision

    Frisco Square has doubled the size of a historic downtown as the city prepares for regional transit.
    Years ago, I kept a list of new urbanist projects on a neighborhood scale that I updated annually or semi-annually. The last update was December of 2003, when I counted 648 projects, with 369 of them under construction. I stopped maintaining that list because it was growing too big—but more...Read more

  • Counting the impact of incremental development

    In cities across the country, small buildings are demonstrating a big effect on economic development and municipal finance.
    Note: This article is based on research presented at CNU 29: Design for Change , held May 19-21. In many cities and towns, most development activity is located in concentrated pockets with other areas overlooked. Generally, the approach outside of these favored areas is to make infrastructure...Read more

  • Factory-built affordability: Are we there yet?

    After more than a decade of sporadic advancements, the factory-built cottage idea may finally have arrived. This development could make a difference in quality affordable housing across the US.
    On March 22, 2021, more than a decade after many assumed such an event would become routine, a small, factory-built home designed to the standards of custom, site-built homes and targeted for infill affordability was lowered onto an infill site in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. “It was a long time...Read more

  • Not New Urbanism, nor a ‘small town’

    I was looking through the recent report, The Best Small Towns to Live Across America , published by Stacker . This kind of real estate list attracts attention, sucks you in like an awards show (which places did they pick?), and is based on nothing very real. Stacker engages in “data journalism,”...Read more