• Planning for retrofit of retirement communities

    Continuing care retirement communities are a huge industry, planned in the suburban model, often with excess land that could be better utilized in a walkable, mixed-use form.
    The 231-acre Aldersgate campus in Charlotte, North Carolina, is one of 1,900 continuing care retirement communities (CCRCs) in the US. Like most CCRCs, Aldersgate is set back from the surrounding city, planned in the single-use suburban model. More than 70 years after the development broke ground...Read more

  • Supporting evolving Central Social Districts

    Main Streets, downtown cores, and neighborhood centers play a vital social role in American communities. The idea of Central Social Districts offers a way for cities to nurture this function to help urban centers thrive.
    Public Square editor Robert Steuteville interviewed economic development expert N. David Milder of DANTH, Inc., on Central Social Districts. Milder wrote a paper that was recently published in the American Downtown Revitalization Review . This is Part 2 of a two-part interview. See Part 1 . RS:...Read more

  • Ten economic benefits of walkable places

    This is second in a series of articles on the advantages of building human-scale cities and towns.
    Human-scale cities and towns: What’s their worth? Generating taxes, saving the Earth Social, health, safety, economy, too Walkable places do so much for you There are many benefits of building walkable places, backed up by research and common sense, to the point where explaining and distilling...Read more

  • The power of central social districts

    Main Streets, downtown cores, and neighborhood centers play a vital social role in American communities. The argument for Central Social Districts is that this social role should be nurtured distinctly for urban centers to succeed.
    Public Square editor Robert Steuteville interviewed economic development expert N. David Milder of DANTH, Inc., on Central Social Districts. Milder wrote a paper that was recently published in the American Downtown Revitalization Review . This is Part 1 of a two-part interview. RS: What is a...Read more