• Sense of place is real

    “Sense of place” is not some nebulous, mystical idea. Sense of place is the emotional or psychological reaction to "place," as shown in the graphic above, created by Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). Communities and neighborhoods with good physical form evoke that psychological...Read more

  • CNU relaunches Build a Better Burb

    After a year of work, the Build a Better Burb website has been upgraded, offering an improved platform for suburbs that are rethinking their planning and development.
    The suburbs are a big part of the movement to create human-scale, walkable places. Land outside of principle cities, the area often equated with suburbs, comprises more than 95 percent of metropolitan areas. Yet the suburbs are often left out of the discussion of people moving into urban places...Read more

  • In urban America, transit consensus is stronger than ever

    The urban support for public transit keeps growing, with expansion plans approved this week in metro areas big and small in many parts of the US.
    We have no idea what a Trump administration will mean for cities. Given the conflicting promises Trump made as a candidate, such as boosting infrastructure spending while eliminating the national debt, he probably doesn’t know either. But one thing is clear: The urban consensus around public...Read more

  • Trump's urban policy: Highways and gentrification?

    Urbanists face considerable uncertainty and concerns in a Trump presidency, but there may be silver linings.
    As I went for a run this morning, everything looked normal. The buses were running in my small city, and workers in hard hats swarmed around steel and wood framing of an affordable housing project that is underway four blocks away. Yet this normalcy seemed strange—juxtaposed against the actuality...Read more