• Erasing the Arbitrary Lines of zoning

    Nolan Gray joins CNU's On the Park Bench for a discussion of zoning, its history and problems, and what to do about it.
    Author Nolan Gray summarizes the most talked-about book on zoning, maybe ever— Arbitrary Lines: How Zoning Broke the American City, and How to Fix It — in a discussion on CNU's On the Park Bench. Gray describes a dramatic change in recent years on how the public views zoning, which went from a...Read more

  • Slouching towards Cincinnati

    Activists and designers have envisioned an alternative to a monstrous highway expansion that is advancing relentlessly through the political process in Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky.
    Note: This article first appeared in Strong Towns .​ A few months ago, I wrote a piece questioning the utility of the Brent Spence Corridor Project , a $3 billion highway widening project that includes the construction of a new companion bridge next to the Brent Spence Bridge, which crosses the...Read more

  • Suburban retrofit is ‘autophagy’ of the built environment

    Conventional suburbs are cities that have grown obese. We need processes for reusing their worn-out parts and creating something of higher value.
    My summer reading sometimes leads to connecting diverse topics with my area of professional focus—the built environment. I recently read a book on fasting 1 that introduced me to the body’s recycling process called “autophagy,” and I thought about suburban retrofit. I don’t know that anyone else...Read more

  • Washington Drawings: Abe to Zoo

    Dhiru A. Thadani has produced an illustrative book that is full of insights into the people, places, history, and urbanism of our nation’s capital.
    Dhiru A. Thadani has a unique knowledge of Washington, DC. Prior to the Internet and Google maps, Thadani led a group of volunteers on a 13-year effort, starting in the 1970s, to exactly draw the footprint of buildings and public spaces of the nation’s capital. This plan, based on the famous 1748...Read more