• Macy's closings—another bad sign for malls

    The announcement creates holes in enclosed shopping malls—meanwhile the department store chain is looking to open downtown locations.
    Macy's is closing 100 stores nationwide —and the vast majority are located in auto-centric suburban shopping malls. Amid these closures, the department store chain reported that it looking at opening three downtown stores in New York, Chicago, and Minneapolis. In many ways, we are seeing a reversal...Read more

  • Design solutions suggested for reconnected Spokane neighborhoods

    This article is part of our ongoing coverage of the Ladders of Opportunity Every Place Counts Design Challenge, a program of the U.S. Department of Transportation with design assistance from CNU. Learn more at cnu.org/everyplacecounts.
    An engineering and planning team assembled by the US Department of Transportation (USDOT) worked with community residents to imagine design possibilities for neighborhoods impacted by freeway corridors in Spokane, Washington. The design-driven workshop event took place in mid-July, when Spokane...Read more

  • Rebuilding communities bisected by I-94 in the Twin Cities

    This article is part of our ongoing coverage of the Ladders of Opportunity Every Place Counts Design Challenge, a program of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) with design assistance from CNU. Learn more at cnu.org/everyplacecounts.
    Complete streets, freeway caps, a trail network, and placemaking were all among the strategies suggested to address the negative impacts of Interstate 94 on two Twin Cities neighborhoods during a USDOT design workshop on July 18 and 19. Rondo, a neighborhood in St. Paul, MN, was bisected by the...Read more

  • USDOT seeks to reconnect Philly neighborhoods

    This article is part of our ongoing coverage of the Ladders of Opportunity Every Place Counts Design Challenge, a program of the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT) with design assistance from CNU. Learn more at cnu.org/everyplacecounts.
    Mayor Jim Kenney calls I-676 in Philadelphia the “not-so-great wall of Chinatown.” The US Department of Transportation (USDOT) held a two-day workshop in mid-July to explore ways to reconnect the expanding Chinatown neighborhood with the redeveloping Callowhill neighborhood. The workshop, hosted by...Read more