• Office space conversion could lead to a virtuous cycle for cities

    Christopher Leinberger and Rebecca Rockey explain the historic opportunity to rebalance the real estate in urban centers.
    Cities need to “get real” and promote office building conversions to live- and play-oriented uses to avoid a structural “doom loop,” Christopher Leinberger and Rebecca Rockey told CNU’s On the Park Bench participants. The good news is that downtown office conversions are feasible in two ways: 1)...Read more

  • Arlington missing middle law struck down

    While missing middle housing is often touted as an answer to rising housing prices, a Virginia court struck down a statute in Arlington, Virginia in late September. A group of property owners sued Arlington County (effectively a satellite city to DC) over its law allowing up to six dwelling units...Read more

  • A model and microcosm for housing solutions

    Kalamazoo represents our nationwide housing problem, but the City also has a four-part strategy to create more units that add to neighborhoods and affordability.
    Kalamazoo is a microcosm of a nationwide housing problem, The New York Times writes, explaining that Michigan is a “mitten-shaped miniature of what the entire country has gone through,” and the City is representative of the state. According to Zillow, the median home value in Kalamazoo and...Read more

  • Twenty years of retrofit with a form-based code

    The regulations to transform the Columbia Pike suburban strip in Arlington were a milestone for form-based codes. A gathering of urbanists reviewed ongoing progress with 3,400 housing units, mixed-use, and public space built in the last 20 years.
    On September 28 th , the CNU DC | Mid-Atlantic Chapter of urbanists held a 20-year review and walking tour of the form-based code (FBC) for a former 3.5-mile strip-commercial portion of Columbia Pike in Arlington County, Virginia. The Pike aligns with the Pentagon, which employs 26,000 military...Read more