• Urbanist, par excellence

    New urbanists lost a respected and capable leader early this week. Hank Dittmar made a difference in urban planning and transportation on both sides of the Atlantic.
    Few urbanists anywhere could boast the wide-ranging influence and experience of Hank Dittmar, who died during the night Monday in Scotland after a long illness. He advised Prince Charles and the Clinton Administration. He was the third director of the influential Surface Transportation Policy...Read more

  • Plan to retrofit suburban to mixed-use urban

    CNU Legacy Project shows how Southside Savannah can leverage a growing university campus to improve quality of life.
    Consultants proposed a new town center for Southside Savannah that connects to the Georgia Southern University Armstrong (GSU-Armstrong) campus and transforms a busy, automobile-oriented thoroughfare into a boulevard. A failing mall could also be redeveloped into mixed-use urban blocks on the scale...Read more

  • Learning from others: The NTBA Roundtable

    Green urbanism, successional development, and the creation of unique, walkable places are among the National Town Builders Association topics.
    One of the critical elements of success for developers is to learn from the successes and failures of others— as opposed to having to learn from your own mistakes on your own dime. Today there are more opportunities to learn from others than at any other time in the past due to the multitude of...Read more

  • Comeback planned for commercial corridor

    CNU partnered with a small city and citizens to create a toolbox with immediate practical usefulness for a segment of the old Dixie Highway in Georgia.
    New urbanists explored the revitalization of a languishing 21-block, 2-plus-mile-long commercial thoroughfare in Brunswick, Georgia, in early March. Norwich Street, with high vacancy rates but good urban “bones,” has strong redevelopment potential for the coastal city of 16,000 people. In a joint...Read more