• 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

  • Why cities are the world’s best hope for climate action

    Cities offer breakthrough potential for immediate and effective action on the impacts of greenhouse gas emissions and a hotter world, according to a new book, The Urban Fix.
    The Urban Fix is the culmination of a long journey for Doug Kelbaugh , an architect and educator in the forefront of environmental and urban design for decades. Kelbaugh designed and built one of the nation’s first passive solar houses in 1973, and he was one of the first advocates of transit-...Read more