• The ‘missing middle’ of zoning code reform

    Beyond the battles between NIMBY and YIMBY, a third option— call it “QUIMBY”—offers a promising path forward.
    Imagine that you’re a parent with a couple of quarrelsome kids. You give them some slices of cake, and perhaps not surprisingly, they fight over who got the bigger slice. Now imagine instead that you tell one of the kids to slice the cake, and let the other kid pick the first slice. Watch how...Read more

  • Fayetteville: The ‘regenerative fabric’

    The largest city in Northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville is managing growth by incremental development that is regenerating the city’s urban fabric.
    As Northwest Arkansas continues to absorb regional growth pressures, Fayetteville offers an example of how an established city can evolve by strengthening what already exists. Fayetteville feels different from Bentonville because it is different. For communities grappling with how to grow without...Read more

  • An accidental urban entertainment district

    Lexington’s Warehouse Block is the outcome of 40 years of incremental development. It could be a replicable model for cities to recycle old commercial districts into social centers over time.
    Randy Walker moved his electrical contracting business into a disinvested industrial building in Lexington, Kentucky, 40 years ago, and started buying nearby abandoned buildings and fixing them up. The revitalization steadily expanded into the 10-acre Warehouse Block , an urban entertainment...Read more

  • How could Complete Streets policies be more effective?

    The Complete Streets movement has largely failed in practice, but a focus on networks and context could make it more effective.
    In a 2011 planning advisory board meeting for a county where I lived, I delivered the exciting news about New York State’s then-new Complete Streets Act, which “requires state, county and local agencies to consider the convenience and mobility of all users when developing transportation projects...Read more