• How bicycles transform 21st Century cities

    Author Dan Piatkowski explains that bicycles, especially e-bikes, are becoming a more important means of transportation and shaping cities as they grow.
    Bicycles are a 19th Century technology discounted as a serious transportation topic for much of the 20th Century—much less a means of shaping cities. I took a high school class called “The Future,” taught by one Stanley Goldfarb, and we were assigned a paper predicting some future scenario. This...Read more

  • When borders blur

    Regional collaboration in action: The New England model.
    There are regions in this country where collaboration is a baked-in part of the culture. Where the towns share water systems, school buses, housing plans—and maybe even optimism. And then there are places where the idea of “regional planning” gets stuck in the gears of local politics, conflicting...Read more

  • Social life, not density, makes city dwellers happy

    Culdesac in Tempe, Arizona, has people-friendly courtyards and a walkable design, which leads to success. The formula is explained in Happy City.
    I’ve been reading Charles Montgomery’s Happy City , a 2013 book on how city design impacts life satisfaction. Then I came across recent coverage of Culdesac in Tempe, Arizona, and a light bulb turned on. Culdesac is one of the nation’s most talked-about new developments, because the 17-acre...Read more

  • We need outward growth—but not sprawl

    The New York Times recently endorsed sprawl as a solution to the housing crisis, but the writer is confused about the outward expansion of cities.
    So The New York Times supports sprawl. Their land-use reporter, Conor Dougherty, wrote a piece : “Why American Should Sprawl: The word has become an epithet for garish, reckless growth—but to fix the housing crisis, we need more of it.” The headline is superimposed over an image of vast Dallas...Read more