• Chattanooga is chugging along

    Four decades of public-nonprofit-private partnership in New Urbanism has produced a city in balance, moving forward.
    I was recently in Chattanooga, one of the first cities in America to be transformed by New Urbanism. An industrial city and railroad hub (celebrated by Glenn Miller’s “Chattanooga Choo-Choo”), the City was in economic and demographic free-fall by the latter part of the 20 th Century. But...Read more

  • Proposed: A new California city

    California Forever in the Central Valley offers an opportunity to test walkable community-building on a scale we haven’t seen in a century.
    At the first Congress for the New Urbanism in Alexandria, Virginia, in 1993, planning Professor Robert Fishman described the concept of “mass suburbia” taking hold in America in the years after World War II. A synonym is “sprawl.” New urbanists have described the physical characteristics of sprawl...Read more

  • Prices mounting in the Green Mountains

    When protecting nature goes too far.
    Hear “Vermont” and a certain vision passes through one’s head: Green Mountains with bucolic small towns. It comes as no surprise that Vermonters know this and love their scenery. To protect it, they’ve passed some of the heftiest environmental protection and development-regulation laws in the...Read more

  • Robert Stern, a leader in traditional architecture and urbanism

    Stern challenged a modernist establishment in the 1970s and 1980s, building a solid portfolio of work that would firmly establish the idea of ‘modern traditionalism.’
    Robert A.M. Stern, who was highly influential in the movement to restore urbanism to America, died Thanksgiving Day at the age of 86. Stern was one of only 20 winners of the Athena Medal, given by CNU to those who have “cast a lasting and enduring influence on the practice and thought of New...Read more