• Portland considers anti-McMansion measures

    Proposed code changes are designed to reduce teardowns and encourage multiple small units in existing neighborhoods.
    Portland, Oregon, is considering an anti-McMansion ordinance designed to discourage 1:1 demolitions of small single-family homes to build very large large single-family homes. Such demolitions, usually associated with rising real estate markets where the housing stock has reached a "certain age,"...Read more

  • City of hope

    Detroit’s real renaissance is now happening in many small places, not the few big ones. Walk around Brush Park, Lower Woodward, and Midtown, and you’ll find all sorts of cool stuff popping up.
    Detroit has lost all that it’s going to lose. The city has clearly turned the corner. If you didn’t get those ruin porn shots you wanted, it’s far too late now; the ruined mansions in Brush Park have either been demolished if they were too far gone, or are now being renovated. New construction...Read more

  • Old buildings are made for you and me

    From California to the New York Islands—more business activity, affordability, and diversity can be found in neighborhoods with a range of old and new buildings.
    In a historic assets study of unprecedented scale, the National Trust for Historic Preservation looked at 50 cities in the US, examining more than 10 million buildings of all ages. Old buildings, and a diversity of scale and ages of buildings in a neighborhood, translate to more jobs and affordable...Read more

  • Violent protests mar Portland’s essential blueprint

    In the Pearl District, a place designed for human movement and a model of affordable urban renaissance, miscreants with bricks and bats fueled Donald Trump’s incendiary charge that our “inner cities are in crisis.”
    Thursday night, the rush of noise funneling down the Pearl District’s Lovejoy Avenue sounded like the gusts of a hurricane’s outer bands. The crescendo built as voices harmonized with the storm of feet moving past my residence. The melodic chant stirred me, raising my hopes and emotions after a...Read more