• An international vision for cities, inspired by Burning Man

    Street grids hold special power to solve problems of massive urbanization, according to Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Romer.
    Paul Romer, the 2018 Nobel Prize winner for economics, has been thinking about how to accommodate 2.3 billion people who are projected to migrate to cities in developing parts of the world by 2050. He has proposed that functional Democracies should administer what he calls “ charter cities ” to...Read more

  • Midwest cities invest in transit

    Three heartland cities are investing to strengthen the downtown core and build a framework for regional multimodal transportation.
    Three Midwest cities—Indianapolis, Kansas City, and Columbus, Ohio—are expanding their transit systems to become more competitive with bigger cities that have legacy transit systems, according to City Journal . Given the limited resources and automobile-oriented infrastructure, technology, and...Read more

  • From extractive investment to community wealth

    There's another side to Opportunity Zones: They could be a catalyst for an emerging system of building community wealth that is bottom-up and local—focusing on the "whole neighborhood."
    Above the fold in Sunday’s The New York Times was a blistering piece on Opportunity Zones: “How a Trump Tax Break to Help Poor Communities Became a Windfall for the Rich.” The article is grounded in evidence and a depressing account of parasitic capitalism that generates wealth for just a few...Read more

  • Highway, gutting a town (or not)

    Urban designer and architect Tom Low recently drew this side-by-side comparison of how a highway can gut, or work in harmony with, a city or town. The cloverleaf option, at left, is ideal for a highway interchange in the country, but creates an enormous barrier in or between neighborhoods. In the...Read more