• Pattern retrofit for resilience options

    This is part 2 of a series on retrofitting urban patterns to create more resilient places where decentralized capital can flourish.
    It is understandable if leaders of places like Cobb County, Georgia, a poster child for American sprawl, are not interested in addressing their deep urban pattern problems. Fixing underlying block, street, and lot patterns is not a sexy topic like architecture, placemaking, or major economic...Read more

  • A suburban town looks at retrofit options

    With transit on the way, Amherst, New York, reimagines its future.
    Amherst, a 122,000-population suburban town adjacent to the City of Buffalo, New York, is going through a transition. Buffalo's mass transit line is planned to be extended into Amherst, presenting an opportunity for mixed-use, transit-oriented nodes. This suburban retrofit opportunity would...Read more

  • Mixed-use suburban retrofit in Rockville

    Rockville Town Square combines transit and placemaking in a mixed-use retrofit.
    In a “misguided attempt at renewal,” wrote The Washington Post , Rockville Maryland “allowed a fortress-like mall to be built in the 1970s.” That project damaged Rockville’s downtown economically and socially for three decades, until the city and county teamed with a developer to build Rockville...Read more

  • 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