• Guide for infill, pre-approved building plans

    An Ohio guidebook for facilitating infill development offers clear instructions for zoning reform and pre-approved plans, in addition to specific infill building plans.
    The median house sale price in Ohio is about $250,000 , which doesn’t sound too bad—it is 49th in the nation in housing costs. Still, home prices have doubled in the Buckeye State in the last 10 years, so Ohio is not immune to the nationwide housing affordability crisis, especially in communities...Read more

  • What New Urbanists can learn from The Villages

    We've learned how to design a good block. It's time for new urbanists to focus on the block party, says Fernando Pages Ruiz. The Villages have mastered that aspect of community building.
    Note: Fernando Pages Ruiz and Andres Duany will discuss lessons from the Villages in an On the Park Bench webinar on July 15, at 12 noon ET. The Villages, Florida, is the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the United States. That fact alone should prompt attention from planners. But there’s a...Read more

  • Making urbanism easier through regulatory reform

    A flurry of Texas measures will streamline approvals and reduce costs for compact, mixed-use urbanism. Here’s how it is being done.
    The housing crisis is inspiring creative land use regulatory reforms at the state and municipal level that align with good urban planning. Recent reforms in the Lone Star State “could drastically change the face of development” in Dallas and other Texas cities, according to Dallas-based developer...Read more

  • The power of an imaginative illustration

    Three decades ago, a man with a pen proposed a park in downtown Providence, showing that artists can be powerful planners.
    DPZ CoDesign conducted a charrette in downtown Providence , Rhode Island, in 1992, sponsored by the City and the Coalition for Community Development. The talented artist Charles Barrett, who passed away in 1996, worked for DPZ. As described in the recently published The Art of the New Urbanism (...Read more