• Receiver places: Planning for climate migration

    Receiver places, a term coined by urbanists for communities likely to gain migrants as climate problems grow, refers to not just physical places but also a process of preparing for change. “ Managed retreat ” is a related term, the other side of the coin to a receiver place. “Managed” implies that...Read more

  • The power of rails and trails

    The 12-foot-wide Blue Line Rail Trail was originally designed to provide emergency access to light rail stations along Charlotte’s Blue Line. “However, since the Blue Line began operating in late 2007, the Rail Trail has been added onto, studied, enhanced, formalized, and transformed,” according to...Read more

  • Making ‘missing middle’ work in an anti-density region

    Cape Cod is desperately in need of housing diversity. Combining ‘visual preference’ with ‘missing middle’ housing types could point the way.
    Cape Cod, the quintessential New England vacationland, has a growing affordable housing problem. The housing stock of the 70-mile-long peninsula is mostly single-family detached—82 percent—out of step with the aging population that swells from 228,000 to more than a half million in the summer...Read more

  • Buffalo suburb moves ahead with retrofit plans

    Amherst, New York, is a municipality to watch for those who are tracking suburban retrofit—the idea of re-purposing automobile-oriented suburban areas for new uses in the 21 st Century. Amherst is the largest suburb in the Buffalo region, and home to the north campus of the University of Buffalo...Read more