• Terminated view, the old and the new

    State Street in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, designed as part of the City Beautiful movement in the early 20th Century, was refurbished a few years back through a program called City Beautiful 2.0. The building at the end of the street is the Pennsylvania State Capitol. "I used to admire this street...Read more

  • Dragon boundary markers

    Iconic dragons, symbols of London, cannot slay the onslaught of hubristic architects and developers.
    Historically, property boundaries were generally demarcated by a physical object, either by a boundary marker or a fence to visually communicate the edges of land ownership. These were human impositions that represented a cultural, political, and social meaning upon a natural environment or within...Read more

  • Top 10 articles for 2018

    Street design topics, innovative housing types and policies, and large-scale urban planning patterns made for most-read articles on Public Square this year. Bad architecture and the impact of automated vehicles also were fodder for popular pieces. Here are the top 10 articles on Public Square for...Read more

  • A social justice case for walking and cycling

    This graph, from Jeff Speck's book Walkable City Rules , tells at a glance why investing in walkable and bike-friendly streets disproportionately helps lower-income workers. Bike lanes are sometimes criticized for benefiting young professionals rather than the poor. This argument is wrong...Read more