• When borders blur

    Regional collaboration in action: The New England model.
    There are regions in this country where collaboration is a baked-in part of the culture. Where the towns share water systems, school buses, housing plans—and maybe even optimism. And then there are places where the idea of “regional planning” gets stuck in the gears of local politics, conflicting...Read more

  • Social life, not density, makes city dwellers happy

    Culdesac in Tempe, Arizona, has people-friendly courtyards and a walkable design, which leads to success. The formula is explained in Happy City.
    I’ve been reading Charles Montgomery’s Happy City , a 2013 book on how city design impacts life satisfaction. Then I came across recent coverage of Culdesac in Tempe, Arizona, and a light bulb turned on. Culdesac is one of the nation’s most talked-about new developments, because the 17-acre...Read more

  • We need outward growth—but not sprawl

    The New York Times recently endorsed sprawl as a solution to the housing crisis, but the writer is confused about the outward expansion of cities.
    So The New York Times supports sprawl. Their land-use reporter, Conor Dougherty, wrote a piece : “Why American Should Sprawl: The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth—but to fix the housing crisis, we need more of it.” The headline is superimposed over an image of vast Dallas...Read more

  • Study shows widespread new urbanist zoning reform

    With the aid of artificial intelligence, researchers examined the extent to which form-based coding is adopted incrementally, often without using the term. The widespread approval of these regulations is good news for proponents of walkable neighborhoods.
    At the beginning of this century, just a handful of form-based codes (FBC) had been adopted nationwide. Conventional zoning, separating uses and housing types, was standard in US cities and towns. A new analysis of more than 2,000 zoning codes across the US using artificial intelligence (AI)...Read more