• What is a SLUG? A term for rural sprawl

    This image was recently posted on LinkedIn along with a discussion of the term SLUG, which stands for spread-out, low-density, unguided growth. Urban designer Kevin Abbott found the term in the 2013 edition of Virginia McAlester’s A Field Guide to American Houses . Some say this is another term for...Read more

  • How community design impacts social life

    The social aspect of community development is important. It’s been said before, but we are, at heart, social creatures. When technology drives us apart, as it has in many ways over the last 100 years, we suffer. Social scientists have consistently measured happiness in America since the 1970s, and...Read more

  • Kentucky wins in a walk

    Basketball fans across America have filled out their brackets using all kinds of analysis, but probably nobody else is using Walk Score to determine NCAA predictions. Here’s how the teams would fare.
    UPDATE: The Walk Score picks have not done so well after the first full weekend. Only six Sweet Sixteen Walk Score picks survived: Florida, Duke, Houston, Purdue, Kentucky, and Tennessee. St. John's, which we projected as a finalist, lost in a first-round upset. We only have a chance for two in the...Read more

  • How one building can make a difference

    There's been much discussion of creating what the late Ray Oldenburg called “third places,” why they are vanishing , and how they are linchpins of neighborhoods and social interaction. Neighborhood Lab, based in Copenhagen, created a graphic describing how a single building “can spark positive...Read more