• Form-based codes boost tax revenue and construction, don’t catalyze gentrification

    New report aligns with other recent research that form-based codes have not translated to gentrification.
    Form-based codes generate economic benefits without significantly altering the racial makeup of communities—and while keeping rent increases down—according to a new report and study called Economic Benefits & Shared Prosperity with Form-Based Codes , by The Form-Based Codes Institute and Smart...Read more

  • California zoning reform: Are form-based codes the answer?

    The Golden State’s recent legislation enabling duplexes and small multifamily buildings has important urban design implications for New Urbanism and walkable communities.
    California adopted legislation last week that would allow duplexes on single-family lots, effectively ending the Golden State’s era of exclusive single-family zoning. At the same time, the state streamlined the process for cities approving small multifamily buildings in infill and transit-oriented...Read more

  • New Urbanism on the Moon

    The architecture of community will be important in space, because you not only have to keep people alive, but happy and healthy—and you do that through sense of community.
    Hilton Hotels famously planned a hotel on the Moon back in the 1960s, when outer space fever was at a high pitch. These plans were obviously never realized and nobody has gone back to the Moon since 1972, but now space ambitions have surged again, and there has even been talk of space settlements...Read more

  • A Lexicon of Modern Facades

    Architectural Modernism emerged between 1900 and 1930, influenced by the industrial revolution, the rapid growth of cities, and the horrific aftermath of World War I. They were motivated by the acceleration of industrialization and social change, and emphasis on function, simplicity, and...Read more