• Mapping the culture and retrofit of a car-oriented community

    A Framework Plan for Cherokee Village envisions retrofitting a partially built 20th-century new town. University of Arkansas Community Design Center won a Merit Award in The Region: Metropolis, City and Town category of the 2025 CNU Charter Awards.
    Cherokee Village is a mid-20th-Century planned new town that failed to reach its full potential. After 70 years, only 20 percent of the lots are built, housing a population of about 5,000 people. It was planned for 60,000 people, served by nearly 300 miles of roads over 21 square miles of northern...Read more
  • A photo of the skyline of Hartford, Connecticut during the daytime.

    Envisioning Hartford: infrastructure, equity, and renewal at a critical crossroads

    Envision Hartford rejects the notion that smaller cities must accept decline and can deliver a bold, pro-urban legacy worthy of the region’s time and treasure.
    As federal, state, and city officials move forward with plans to reconstruct Interstates 84 and 91 through Hartford, Connecticut, a rare opportunity emerges to repair the city’s fractured urban fabric and revitalize its economic base. For decades, motorists have sped through Hartford, unaware of...Read more

  • A creek, boulevard, and urban destination

    Cherry Creek and Speer Boulevard Vision and Feasibility Study in Denver, CO aims to restore a stream and the urban fabric along a traffic corridor. HDR won a Merit Award in the Neighborhood, District, and Corridor category of the 2025 CNU Charter Awards.
    A study of Cherry Creek and Speer Boulevard reimagines 92 acres of urban corridor adjacent to downtown Denver, Colorado. The corridor includes a heavily traveled thoroughfare and a channelized creek that separate Lower Downtown (LoDo) from the Auraria Higher Education Campus (HEC) to the west,...Read more

  • Pre-approved path to rebuild neighborhoods

    Midwest Pre-Approved Building Programs for Rebuilding Neighborhoods helps cities build the housing they need. Kalamazoo and South Bend won a Merit Award in The Region: Metropolis, City and Town category of the 2025 CNU Charter Awards.
    The decline of Midwestern cities from migration, suburbanization, and loss of manufacturing led Kalamazoo, Michigan, and South Bend, Indiana, to seek proactive solutions like “pre-approved” building programs. Launched in 2022 and 2024, these pre-approved building programs have accelerated high-...Read more