• The value of a ‘master street plan’

    Why wouldn't you design every city plan and every suburb with a tightly connected pattern of streets and blocks?
    Note: This week I posted a commentary on the importance of starting with a street grid and how this disappeared from city planning. This piece by David Green explores the disconnect between the value of master street plans and the ongoing opposition to their creation, and how this came to be. It...Read more

  • Learning from the planners of old

    Street networks. Just Do It.
    A meme posted by a New Urbanist touches upon an important truth about how we build communities today, and why it is so difficult to create good places. New Urbanists are very good at designing great urban places—not as good, so far, at getting them built at the scale that is necessary to meet...Read more

  • The ‘missing middle’ of zoning code reform

    Beyond the battles between NIMBY and YIMBY, a third option— call it “QUIMBY”—offers a promising path forward.
    Imagine that you’re a parent with a couple of quarrelsome kids. You give them some slices of cake, and perhaps not surprisingly, they fight over who got the bigger slice. Now imagine instead that you tell one of the kids to slice the cake, and let the other kid pick the first slice. Watch how...Read more

  • Fayetteville: The ‘regenerative fabric’

    The largest city in Northwest Arkansas, Fayetteville is managing growth by incremental development that is regenerating the city’s urban fabric.
    As Northwest Arkansas continues to absorb regional growth pressures, Fayetteville offers an example of how an established city can evolve by strengthening what already exists. Fayetteville feels different from Bentonville because it is different. For communities grappling with how to grow without...Read more