• Dabbawalla: Low-carbon urban delivery

    The traditional, low-tech system of delivering lunches in India's largest city is an inspirational model to sustainably reduce carbon emissions.
    Every visit to Bombay (Mumbai) renews my fascination with the service that delivers home-cooked lunches to office workers. The service is provided by Dabbawalla, which literally translates to “one who carries a box,” a tiffin, a modular stainless steel lunch container. For the past 134 years, they...Read more

  • A pattern language applied to a suburban strip

    A report on a workshop in Charlotte shows how Christopher Alexander’s pattern language can be expanded to improve communities.
    A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander is one of the best-selling architectural books of all time, inspiring many urbanists with ideas related to community design. Yet its land-use influence is limited by the difficulty of translating the ideas into comprehensive plans and zoning codes. Also,...Read more

  • A toolbox for equitable planning

    Adding sensitivity to courage, intelligence, and vitality is a recipe for an equitable land-use plan, according to The Equity Planner.
    Equity planning is inclusion and shared success, explains Jason King of Dover, Kohl & Partners (DKP), author of The Equity Planner: Five Tools to Facilitate Economic Development with Just Outcomes . DKP principal King, DKP urban planner Kessie Estil, and Diana Pena, co-founder of Able City,...Read more

  • Elevate your urbanism at CNU 32

    ‘Foundational courses’ will cover walkability, health, suburban retrofit, street design, Tactical Urbanism, tree canopies, land-use regulations, building types, and more.
    The annual CNU Congress is a multidisciplinary event that attracts top urban designers and planners and related fields. Congress for the New Urbanism “foundational courses” are technically 101-level, but they are typically taught so that even highly experienced practitioners can learn something...Read more