• A wall rises in Buffalo

    Even a city that is getting better makes mistakes, such as a massive concrete wall around a development in a city where population and urbanism are growing.
    In early March, 2020, days before the entire nation came to a sudden pandemic halt, I was in Buffalo, New York, for a charrette co-sponsored by CNU. It was brutally cold—as Buffalo can be in winter—and that may have contributed to my poor judgment (it’s hard to think clearly about urbanism when...Read more

  • Building tall where it counts

    Embracing neighborhood change to address the housing crisis.
    America is experiencing a housing crisis! While this crisis affects communities across the country, it is most pronounced in and near a few major cities. There, housing supply has failed to keep up with growing demand for decades, resulting in prices that are out of range for even middle-class...Read more

  • Feds release plan for compact communities to counter climate change

    The US National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization lays out goals for practitioners of New Urbanism and smart growth “to increase convenience and reduce emissions by making it possible for people to take fewer or shorter trips.”
    Read the official CNU media release here . The US government on Tuesday released a groundbreaking Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization that fully recognizes the critical role of compact, complete communities in reducing carbon emissions and addressing the nation’s climate issues. No federal...Read more

  • Atlanta’s Downtown Connector: Bury it or demolish it?

    To mitigate this scar on Atlanta’s urban fabric, two freeway cap proposals are being pushed by local business groups.
    In 1952 the first section of an expressway that would split the heart of Atlanta opened. It was designed in the 1940s to connect the growing suburbs to the north with those in the south, while providing a fast way around congested streets in bustling districts like Five Points. Eventually, it would...Read more