• Legacy Project focuses on historic Black theater

    The Jewel Theatre is a 1931 brick building with Deco details on 4 th Street of Oklahoma City—the only building left standing on what was once a thriving main street block in a Black business district. The Jewel Theatre operated from the 1930s through the 1970s, and is now a deteriorating shell...Read more

  • How the ‘Heart of Town’ saved a town’s future

    Compact development, which contributes to carbon reduction, is also useful for climate adaptation and the building of defensible places.
    It’s been 10 years this month since a new urban charrette was held in Jean Lafitte, Louisiana, a town of 2,000 people that had a very uncertain future. The low-density town is in a part of the state that is washing away into the Gulf of Mexico. Other towns in Louisiana’s coastal wetlands, most...Read more

  • Envisioning Albany, without the waterfront-blocking freeway

    It’s hard to imagine a highway that damages a city more, and serves a less noble purpose, than Interstate 787 in Albany, New York’s capital. This highway segment does not carry Interstate through traffic—it was built so state workers and legislators could quickly enter and exit the Empire State...Read more

  • The program that ‘changed everything’ for Oklahoma City

    Thirty years ago, Oklahoma City’s downtown was hurting badly, and the city’s livability and beauty were at a low ebb. A policy called MAPs transformed the city.
    Oklahoma City (OKC) is one of the few major cities with championship-level kayaking and whitewater rafting in the middle of the city. Downtown is connected to a seven-mile-long recreational riverfront via a series of manmade “river lakes.” A new urban canal links downtown to the Bricktown...Read more