• ‘Geoaccounting’ makes the case for relocating Interstate

    The importance of downtown and walkable urbanism is paramount to Syracuse, New York, and other cities, made visible through this graphic.
    Note: Urban3 won a 2019 CNU Merit Award with an Emerging Project designation for its “ geoaccounting ” method of analyzing urban places. All of 2019 Charter Awards will be presented at CNU 27 in Louisville on June 14. I came across this remarkable image created by Joe Minicozzi and Urban3, a firm...Read more

  • Enabling a diverse Southwestern county to grow and prosper

    Doña Ana County, a culturally rich but economically challenged part of New Mexico, is staking its future on walkable communities.
    The beauty of Doña Ana County, with the Organ mountains and the Rio Grande, the fields of chile and orchards of pecans, is stunning. Yet many of those who live and work in this landscape are challenged economically—almost 26 percent of the residents live in poverty, and a quarter of the population...Read more

  • Practical confessions of an urbanist pilgrim

    After 12 days of walking the Portuguese Camino, the importance of many urban planning and development concepts—from the urban-to-rural Transect to balanced growth—became abundantly clear.
    In order to understand places, built environment professionals and real estate developers need to also understand the places between, and practice on-the-ground, inter-urban, and inter-settlement walkability. This approach is an essential way to anticipate the context of a given site, using the “...Read more

  • Building Local Strength: Emerging Strategies for Inclusive Development

    Design strategies alone won’t ensure that good urban design, land use, and public spaces will be accessible and equitable. Communities are figuring out solutions, and they are outlined in a new CNU report.
    In 2007, I was on a technical assistance team working to revitalize and tame Denver’s East Alameda corridor. My colleagues Dena Belzer, Jim Charlier, and Tim Van Meter (all current or former CNU members) and I were looking at three different nodes along the corridor, two with relatively simple...Read more