• Vision of a ‘solar village,’ realized by New Urbanism

    Civano New Town is a groundbreaking fusion of New Urbanism and green design that has proven the efficacy of both together. Moule & Polyzoides, Architects and Urbanists won a 2022 CNU Charter Award in the Neighborhood, District, and Corridor category.
    Beautiful to look at, culturally sensitive, and measurably sustainable, Civano New Town in Tucson, Arizona, was ahead of its time. Planned in 1996, Civano set a standard for what was then a radical idea—combining New Urbanism and green design. Due to economic and ownership circumstances, only one...Read more

  • New Urbanism in the New Urban Agenda: Threads of an unfinished (global) reformation

    The two charters represent a “paradigm shift” in the shaping of cities and towns, away from machinery and machine thinking, and back towards people. A May conference in Paris will explore them both.
    In 1922—a century ago this year—a young Swiss architect named Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, better known as Le Corbusier, made a radical proposal for the restructuring of Paris and other cities. His utopian plan for a “Ville Contemporaine” (contemporary city) featured wide streets dedicated to...Read more

  • Urban design boosts ‘passive cooling,’ responds to climate change

    Civano, a new urbanist town in Tucson, Arizona, provides a useful model for how three-dimensional design cuts energy and water use—and also adapts to and mitigates climate change.
    The shade provided by buildings and trees in walkable neighborhoods could be a key to making urban places more adaptive and resilient to a warming planet, according to a study of Civano, an early new urbanist town in Tucson, Arizona. Green design characteristics of Civano—especially its white roofs...Read more

  • Eight ways for ‘receiver cities’ to prepare

    Great Lakes communities are prominent examples of what new urbanists often refer to as “receiver cities, towns, and villages.” They can prepare for migration by promoting growth that improves the quality of life of existing inhabitants.
    As the world’s climate changes, experts are looking around for places that are likely to receive in-migration of population. A growing number are pointing to the Great Lakes region, from Upstate New York to Minnesota, and its historic cities and towns. From a climate migration perspective, the...Read more