• Ten reasons to build community through urban design

    There are two models for development of cities and towns. One, the neighborhood model, founded on thousands of years of trial and error, brings people together.
    We build cities that bring us together or push us apart. "Gated communities" are an obvious example of building to isolate, but other methods are also common. Streets that are too wide, with fast moving traffic, divide us. So do zoning codes that separate uses and housing types. Berms, buffers,...Read more

  • Want some Walk Appeal with your tacos?

    Here's how great walking environments benefit eating and drinking establishments (and vice-versa).
    Restaurants in places with good Walk Appeal are inherently less fattening than unwalkable ones because meals come with embedded exercise. I just walked to my favorite restaurant and back, and burned 113 calories. That might not seem like a lot, but 113 calories each day for a year is enough to lose...Read more

  • Five ways federal infrastructure spending makes cities poorer

    A pithy summary of why our infrastructure spending goes wrong—and how to fix it.
    The United States Congress seems poised to spend a trillion dollars or more on infrastructure in a bipartisan consensus to stimulate the economy. Without major changes in our approach, this spending is going to make our cities poorer, weaken our country and -- once the temporary stimulus has passed...Read more

  • Garden towns need some garden city thinking to succeed

    Ebenezer Howard’s Garden Cities were carefully planned with strict design codes and infrastructure funded by the uplift in land values. The same principles should be applied to the new garden villages and towns across Britain..
    Much effort has been expended by successive governments in stimulating production by volume house builders, with modest success. Some estimate that planning permission has been granted for over 600,000 homes, though the number of actual housing starts, while up, hovers stubbornly around the 2008...Read more