• For Grand Rapids, a ‘people first’ development policy

    The issue has changed from whether the city will grow to how and for whom the development is taking place.
    After a declining first decade of this millennium, Grand Rapids, Michigan, has turned the corner on population growth and development. The city has grown by 4.5 percent this decade, compared to a 4.9 percent loss in the 2000s. The city of nearly 200,000 residents has seen $2 billion in development...Read more

  • Urbanism and the meaning of life

    Jane Jacobs, Christopher Alexander, and why good urbanism requires good philosophy
    I am new to New Urbanism, still finding my way around its leading ideas and projects. And as an academic, trained in philosophy no less, I sometimes wonder why I find all of this so captivating. Perhaps the reason should be obvious: there is in fact a rich philosophical dimension to contemporary...Read more

  • Study supports freeway removal as best option

    A tunnel would cost nearly three times as much as converting the aging I-81 in Syracuse to a boulevard—as suggested by CNU's Freeways Without Futures report.
    A new study shows that building a tunnel to carry Interstate 81 traffic through Syracuse, NY, would cost billions more dollars and take a decade to complete. The wisdom of transforming the aging elevated highway to a surface boulevard, as suggested by CNU's Freeways Without Futures 2017 list , is...Read more

  • From car-oriented thoroughfare to community center

    Lancaster, California, has lit the local economy and secured a social heart with one transformative street project.
    Note: This case study was written for the Institute for Transportation Engineers new book Implementing Context Sensitive Design on Multimodal Corridors , funded by the Federal Highway Administration. The nine-block makeover of Lancaster Boulevard, the city’s historic main street, has become a...Read more