• Yesterday a danger zone—today, pure San Francisco

    The Choice Neighborhoods development brings order to a city sector laid out in squiggly postwar cul-de-sacs. Newly redesigned streets lead directly to shops, transit, and other services.
    By any measure, San Francisco ranks among the world’s most beautiful cities. Yet for years, in a sector that tourists never see, 50 barracks-style buildings constructed in 1943 housed 264 families in poverty and fear. Now, a new project is helping the community at Hunters View write a brighter...Read more

  • Great idea: Lean Urbanism

    Lean Urbanism seeks to bring common sense back into the planning and development process—because great neighborhoods are built with many hands, often in small increments.
    In celebration of the 25th Congress for the New Urbanism , Public Square is running the series 25 Great Ideas of the New Urbanism. These ideas have been shaped by new urbanists and continue to influence cities, towns, and suburbs. The series is meant to inspire and challenge those working toward...Read more

  • Urban planning can’t happen without black people in the room—Yet it does

    Note: Charles Ellison spoke at CNU 25 in Seattle as part of a panel on Combating the Suburbanization of Poverty. Sit at the tables where people are deciding where the new high school will go, or whether to expand the bus depot, and you’ll probably need to ask, “Where are all the people of color?”...Read more

  • The urban anxieties of Richard Florida

    Grass-roots revitalization is taking place in many American cities, an antidote to the "winner takes all urbanism" described in The New Urban Crisis.
    When Richard Florida burst onto the North American scene nearly 20 years ago, he did so with a sunny urban vision. His breakthrough book, The Rise of the Creative Class , asserted that a growing class of knowledge workers, techies, artists, and other creative people was gravitating toward city...Read more