• Lessons from a successful suburban center

    The Village of Providence shows how you can create a strong place out of nowhere in two decades.
    I recently visited the Village of Providence in Huntsville, Alabama, for the Urban Guild Summit . Providence is a Charter Award-winning traditional neighborhood development (TND) designed in the early 2000s by DPZ CoDesign, and it is just a nice place to be. While there for three days, I had no car...Read more

  • Making the most of a small mixed-use site

    A development plan in Edmond, Oklahoma, has 10-foot-wide townhouses and a mix of small commercial and residential buildings to create intimate urban spaces on the edge of downtown.
    Planned for an infill site in Edmond, Oklahoma, a development offers an urban mix of residential, work, and entertainment on less than a half acre. In addition to a four-story commercial building anchoring the corner, the plan includes a range of smaller building types, including three live-work...Read more

  • Stockyards reimagined

    Adaptive reuse of horse and mule barns in Fort Worth makes for a unique mixed-use development.
    The horse and mule barns at the Fort Worth Stockyards could house 3,000 equines at one point, but the automotive age made the facility obsolete. The five-acre site was vacant and dilapidated when the city approved a form-based code and design guidelines in 2017 to promote redevelopment of the...Read more

  • Complete streets: What went wrong?

    Law professor Michael Lewyn has written a comprehensive and readable analysis of the complete streets movement, why it has failed to transform America’s streets, and what can be done.
    The term “complete streets” was invented by staff members of national bicycle and smart growth advocacy organizations in 2003, and it was brilliantly effective in terms of moving legislation. Complete street policies have been the most adopted category of laws impacting transportation and the built...Read more