• Seven qualities of safe spaces

    An American urban planner who was influential in the design of mixed-income neighborhoods enumerates the qualities of public spaces that feel safe and secure.
    People are hard-wired by thousands of years of evolution to react to the built environment in certain universal ways. That’s true because the design of communities has a real impact on safety, health, and social relationships. Over countless generations, our ancestors were attracted to places that...Read more

  • Voters choose transit in two sprawling cities

    Successful ballot initiatives in Nashville, Tennessee, and Columbus, Ohio, have the potential to greatly improve mobility and transit in two of America’s fastest growing, automobile-dominated cities.
    In the excitement and consternation of the national election in November, it was easy to miss some good news at the ballot box in a pair of America’s fastest-growing big cities. Citizens in the Nashville and Columbus regions voted by healthy margins to tax themselves to invest in transportation...Read more

  • Bringing back building types: conservation biology, or Jurassic Park?

    How does our world now compare to the conditions under which prehistoric creatures or historic building cultures thrived?
    You have to admit it: vanished species that used to fill the globe have a certain appeal. From the time I was a four-year-old playing with dinosaurs to my current work with Missing Middle Housing, I’ve been fascinated by life from the past and continually asking why certain things seem to have...Read more

  • Main Street brings New Urbanism to New York State

    Eastdale Village in Poughkeepsie crosses a US highway with a four-block Main Street, drawing visitors with a strong sense of place.
    A new four-block Main Street crosses US Route 44 about two miles east of Poughkeepsie, New York. Eastdale Village is a first-of-its-kind development in Upstate New York, which boasts some of the nation’s best old urbanism, but little New Urbanism. The development required give-and-take with the...Read more