• An adaptable zoning proposal for walkable cities

    Contemporary zoning envisions cities in a finished state—we need codes that constantly adapt to the changing urban landscape, which is the idea behind “metrocoalescence.”
    Zoning has a vice grip on the housing market across the country; we need to shift the basic logic underlying zoning to create a lasting shift in the urban housing market and to produce classical patterns of urban development. In spite of ample literature criticizing zoning and describing what good...Read more

  • Reforming parking by changing one word

    Norman, Oklahoma, has devised one of the most efficient ways to reduce parking requirements and stimulate incremental development.
    Of all the 20th Century regulations that tend to prevent good urbanism, parking requirements may be the most easily remedied. Norman, Oklahoma’s third-largest city, located in the middle of the state, came up with a more efficient way to reduce off-street parking requirements than nearly any US...Read more

  • Grand boulevards would solve the housing crisis, Calthorpe says

    Redeveloping commercial corridors, using policies like AB 2011 in California, enables new housing at a scale big enough to eliminate the housing shortage in the US without displacement, argues a CNU founder.
    Redeveloping commercial corridors into mixed-use urban places could solve the housing crisis, according to Peter Calthorpe, CNU cofounder and urban designer with HDR. “As of right” zoning was adopted for 8 million housing units—two million “market feasible”—on thoroughfares lined with retail,...Read more

  • Vermont is bringing back missing middle housing

    The Vermont Homes for All Toolkit comprehensively promotes Missing Middle housing for more diverse and affordable living in the Green Mountain State.
    Eighteen years ago, when Lilli West got into the real estate business, she saw a need. Back then, it was short sales and foreclosures—and she grew her business at an unlikely time when real estate agents were leaving the industry left and right. Today, as the owner of Maple Leaf Realty, the largest...Read more