• Building a healthier downtown and region

    Downtown has come back to life while the city is building a transit framework for walkable, mixed-use growth along corridors.
    The assessed value of downtown El Paso, Texas, has risen to $329 million, from $191 million in 2005, according to a February report in the El Paso Times . These values put numbers to a revival that has transformed the downtown to a destination for locals and tourists, writes Steve Ortega, a member...Read more

  • A towering proposal for Portland’s Pearl

    I don't often write about skyscrapers, but this proposal includes smart urban design moves.
    Portland’s Pearl District may get five million new square feet of development, including two towers—one 970 feet tall—in what is called the Broadway Corridor Plan. This project is interesting because it would extend the Portland tiny block pattern and the city's iconic “park blocks.” It also would...Read more

  • State-of-the-art implementation in a historic town

    A citywide comprehensive plan joins progressive vision with detailed implementation.
    The Beaufort Civic Master Plan continues to have an impact on the small coastal South Carolina municipality of about 13,000, as shown by the planning evolution of a key parcel. In February a developer submitted a mixed-use walkable plan for a 19-acre parcel across a bridge from downtown. The...Read more

  • Public housing at the heart of neighborhood revival

    In a half century, a neighborhood was cleared for public housing towers. Then the failing towers gave way to a new neighborhood.
    The Hawthorne neighborhood in Philadelphia has come back to life—catalyzed by Martin Luther King Plaza, the redevelopment of a former high-rise public housing project. Philadelphia Inquirer architecture critic Inga Saffron remembers Hawthorne as a "notorious, crime-ridden area," that is today a...Read more