• Ten things to see and do in Louisville (while at CNU)

    Still haven’t registered for CNU 27.Louisville June 12-15, or are planning fun side activities for your trip? Then this list of some of our local favorites is for you. The discounted registration rate for CNU 27 is available until May 10th.
    1) Main Street and the Old Forester Distillery A favorite of local new urbanists, this stunning downtown destination was a triumphant return to Main Street for Old Forester, the iconic makers of sour mash, who claim bragging rights to the first bourbon ever sealed in a glass bottle. Whisky Row is...Read more
  • By Laurence Qamar

    A context-based, form-language for mixed-use, main street buildings

    How to design buildings with human scale and proportion (and Modernism’s ongoing inability to get it right).
    A housing crisis and subsequent apartment building boom has overtaken many America cities in the post Great Recession twenty-teens. Similar transformations have not been experienced in American Cities since the decades following the two World Wars. With rising homeless rates, and spiking real...Read more

  • Connecting to a hidden natural asset

    A CNU Legacy Project explores the potential of an underutilized creek corridor that runs through more than dozen neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky.
    The South Fork of Beargrass Creek meanders through 13 or 14 diverse neighborhoods in Louisville, Kentucky, yet few nearby residents take much notice of the waterway. The creek has long been channelized, hidden, and used as part of the city’s stormwater system. During storm events, overflows often...Read more

  • People and placemaking potential of small downtowns

    In the era of "winner take all urbanism," why are many small towns coming back to life—and why might they be good places to invest?
    The New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote an article last week about the civic minded attitude in rural America, and it got me thinking about small-town urbanism, Opportunity Zones , and the placemaking potential outside of metro areas. Brooks writes : Everybody says rural America is...Read more