• The most housing-forward planning framework in Canada

    Growing Together in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, employs robust public engagement to accommodate a half-century of growth around transit stations. The City of Kitchener won a 2025 CNU Charter Award in The Region: Metropolis, City and Town category.
    Growing Together is a planning framework that introduces entirely new land uses and zones customized to Major Transit Station Areas (MTSAs) in Kitchener, a city of 256,000 in Southern Ontario, Canada. The Ion light rail system began operating in 2019, with 11 stations in the 53-square-mile...Read more

  • Providence mayor promotes urban housing policy

    In an interview, Brett Smiley discusses sustainable, equitable, urban housing policy, and other topics that will be covered at CNU33 in Providence, Rhode Island, June 11-14.
    CNU returns to Providence next month for our 33rd annual Congress. We are so excited to revisit this city, at the heart of a region that has been on a long path of addressing urban challenges, familiar to many across this country, with New Urbanist solutions. Actualizing change on a city-wide scale...Read more

  • A model dark sky community

    The Groveland Dark Sky Initiative manages and reduces light pollution citywide—even as the Central Florida community rapidly grows. City of Groveland won Honorable Mention in The Region: Metropolis, City and Town category of the 2025 CNU Charter Awards.
    In June 2023, Groveland, Florida, became the first certified International Dark Sky Community in Florida and the Southeast US, using context-based lighting standards. The Groveland Dark Sky Initiative applies new urbanist thinking to light pollution—downtown, in historic neighborhoods, suburban...Read more

  • Promoting creative retrofit solutions

    States have an interest in promoting the reuse of failing suburban commercial properties. They need to promote mixed-use and walkability without stifling creative solutions.
    What do we do with the obsolete suburban retail properties and office parks multiplying across the US? Some states, such as New Jersey, are looking at legislative solutions to failing commercial sites, and trying to promote mixed-use and walkability, among other goals. Legislation is not my forte,...Read more