• The McMansion is not a town

    How many gables does this house have? I lost count at 11. The fake dormers and complicated roof line are meant to make up for the lack of variety in this Maryland exurb. Every house nearby has a similarly expansive lawn that is rarely used. Need to get anywhere? Take one of the cars in the multiple...Read more

  • 10+5=15

    AASHTO, FHWA, NACTO and other credible organizations recognize that 10’ general purpose lanes on streets in cities are fine. According to the best research by Eric Dumbaugh and others, 10’ lanes provide equal or superior results for safety compared to 11’ and 12’ lanes. Right-sizing the less safe...Read more

  • Slow Roll

    Note: New York State announced support for, or progress on, two urban freeway teardowns in Buffalo, New York. Like most US cities, Buffalo suffered greatly from ill-considered 20th Century highways that demolished and divided neighborhoods. Now, governments are slowly rolling back the damage from...Read more

  • The Transect: A diagram of diversity

    The inspiration for this iconic drawing was a walk from the beach over the dunes and into the scrub woodlands in the early days of Seaside, Florida. Douglas Duany, landscape architect, explained the natural transect to architect Andres Duany, who made a connection between nature and urban form...Read more