• Responding to the ‘Klinkenberg Retreat’

    The suburbs can be repaired in certain places, but it's a fool's errand to think they can be retrofitted wholesale, as a default pattern.
    I’m not going to spend a long time dissecting Kevin Adams' piece on "The Next Great Urban Reset," since a lot of it is ground that I have trod before in depth. I will say that it’s been a while since someone has named something after me, so I thank him for that. The last time that I believe it...Read more

  • Plan to retrofit suburban to mixed-use urban

    CNU Legacy Project shows how Southside Savannah can leverage a growing university campus to improve quality of life.
    Consultants proposed a new town center for Southside Savannah that connects to the Georgia Southern University Armstrong (GSU-Armstrong) campus and transforms a busy, automobile-oriented thoroughfare into a boulevard. A failing mall could also be redeveloped into mixed-use urban blocks on the scale...Read more

  • ‘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