• ‘Missing middle’ neighborhood opens

    Prairie Queen is a re-imagining of a suburban apartment complex in the form of a walkable neighborhood.
    Perhaps the nation’s first exclusively “missing middle” housing neighborhood, the 50-acre Prairie Queen in Papillion, Nebraska—near Omaha—completed its first phase in June. Prairie Queen is a re-imagining of a suburban apartment complex in the form of a walkable neighborhood. The concept, designed...Read more

  • Of donuts and chitchat: How people use public spaces

    William H. Whyte was a pioneer on studying the endlessly fascinating ways that people use public spaces. The SWA Group recently conducted an update on Whyte's work in New York City, and the results were published in a Guardian article called From lizarding to lingering: how we really behave in...Read more

  • Refuge and prospect: The front porch

    One of Seaside’s crucial mandates: Houses should have porches. New Urbanism spread from there, and the number of new U.S. homes built with porches has risen ever since, from 42 percent in 1994 to 52 percent in 2004 to 65 percent in 2016.
    My approaching birthday has me taking stock, as approaching birthdays do. This year isn’t a milestone — I’m merely being ushered into my ( write it! ) late 40s. But I’m passing another sort of milestone. I moved to the South when I was 23. This birthday means that I’ve been a Southerner over half...Read more

  • Federal infrastructure bills introduce Highways-to-Boulevards pilots

    A pilot program proposed to fund the study and removal of highways in urban contexts, an idea of great interest to urbanists, has largely flown under the radar.
    Prior to departing Washington for August recess, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works unanimously advanced in a vote of 21-0 the bill S. 2302, America’s Transportation Infrastructure Act of 2019 . Others have already looked at the bill’s commitment to further highway spending , its...Read more