• ‘Urbanizing the suburbs’ goes big

    Suburban Remix, a new book, reports on commercial development of mixed-use, walkable centers as a powerful force in the American landscape.
    “Without damaging a blade of grass on a single lawn” suburbs across North America can transform outmoded shopping centers and office parks “into a new generation of compact, dense, walkable, mixed-use, urban places that accommodate multiple dreams,” writes architect and urban designer David Dixon...Read more

  • Transforming a ‘small town lost in time’

    A suburb shows how to grow while building the core in a way that adds to the character of place.
    Until 2000, Woodstock, Georgia, was a small town with a population of about 10,000—but encroaching Atlanta sprawl threatened to engulf the community in cookie-cutter projects. The town needed a way to preserve and enhance its main street character. The 32-acre Woodstock Downtown has created an...Read more

  • Twelve steps of sprawl recovery

    In communities across America sprawl is giving way to more diverse places. Here are a dozen keys to that trend.
    The storm clouds of sprawl addiction had been gathering for years, but it took the Meltdown and the ensuing Great Recession to make it clear just how damaging that addiction had been to the health of cities across the US and abroad. Sprawl has two really big things going for it, but three even...Read more

  • Do you know the way, San Jose?

    A sprawling land that’s crossed by freeways—put a few thousand down and rent a room. Be a part of the next technology boom.
    In the late 1960s, when Burt Bacharach wrote the most famous song about San Jose, the small city was a sleepy source of nostalgia for someone living in fast-paced LA. Now San Jose is the nation’s tenth largest city and home, in its northern part, to more Fortune 500 companies than any other place...Read more