• Why Universal Design is critical to CNU

    Too many architects, planners, transportation engineers, and urban designers reduce the ADA to some kind of onerous hurdle that must be leaped.
    As a reporter, marketer, and planner, I have been involved with the Congress for New Urbanism since its founding. I started writing about urban design, growth, development and how cities work and fail in 1988, the same year I married a brilliant attorney and writer who has used a wheelchair for...Read more

  • Green, redevelopment fills hole created by ‘urban renewal’

    A New England-style green creates the site for mixed-use and affordable housing at the center of a historic city.
    Meriden, Connecticut, tore down its industrial heart in the middle of the 20 th Century to build an enclosed shopping mall that soon failed, replaced by a strip mall that flooded, replaced by offices that were flooded and demolished. The series of fiascos at the center of this city of 60,000,...Read more

  • A call to rethink dying houses of worship

    The US may see 100,000 churches close, and this issue could help determine the success or failure of many downtowns and neighborhoods over the next three to four decades. The skills of urbanists are needed.
    Rome, Georgia, features steeple after steeple defining its skyline. Its tourist map for Rome depicts 15 houses of worship in its six-block long, four-block-wide Downtown area alone. The church properties take up a substantial portion of developable land downtown. Like cities nationwide, most of...Read more

  • Freeway fighting tide has turned

    The halting of three in-city freeway expansions highlights a new momentum on reversing the damage of highways through urban areas.
    The tide is turning on in-city freeways—but the movement to reverse course on these thoroughfares is just gaining momentum. In recent weeks, three highway expansion projects across the US have run into roadblocks or ended entirely. Oregon DOT (ODOT) declined to defend its environmental review to...Read more