• Ford promotes street grids

    A town in Texas is on the leading edge of a trend to bring back the practical, efficient street networks for new development.
    What do huge metropolises and small towns have in common? Their downtowns are laid out on a grid of streets, according to a video called The City Grid Comeback, which has garnered more than 450,000 views on You Tube. The video focuses on Bastrop, Texas, a town that changed its land-use laws in 2019...Read more

  • Turning a ‘stroad’ into a street

    “Stroad” is a term coined by Strong Towns’ Chuck Marohn to describe the poorly designed commercial streets found in conventional suburban environments across America. These thoroughfares are part street, part road, hence the name stroad, and perform neither function very well. Redesigning such...Read more

  • Calculating ‘induced demand’

    Recently the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) created a very simple tool that is long needed: A calculator of “induced demand” in transportation . This is the economic concept that applies when supply increases, price declines, and therefore demand for goods rises. Most notably and controversially,...Read more

  • Contemporary Vernacular: A style for everyday city life

    Some “Contemporary Vernacular” buildings try too hard to be noticed. Others are playful, elegant, and worthy contributors to the "Comic scene" in urban neighborhoods and city centers.
    This is Part 2 of a 2-part series. See Part 1 here. “Developer Chic,” “Fast Casual,” “LoMo” (for low Modernism), and “Boxy” are all epithets critical of the architectural building types and style of many recent, mixed-use residential buildings. Clearly pejorative, it needs to be asked; are the...Read more