• Low-income people need ‘15-minute cities’ the most

    Those who think “15-minute cities” are for wealthy urbanites should consider this graph from a recent nationwide study. It shows a powerful reverse correlation between household income and use of services and amenities within a 15-minute walk of home. In other words, the wealthier you are, the less...Read more

  • Objective design standards are form-based codes

    The state of California is responding to the nation’s second highest housing costs (behind only Hawaii) with regulatory reforms that promote form-based codes along transit lines and commercial corridors.
    California's long standing “Not-In-My-Backyard” (NIMBY) culture has exacerbated the problems of high housing costs and homelessness. Over the past 50 years, conventional zoning ordinances and entitlement processes have conspired to support NIMBY intentions to stop new housing from being built near...Read more

  • Meet the nominees for CNU's 2023 Freeways Without Futures report

    The ten campaigns selected for the 2023 Freeways Without Futures report offer a roadmap to the future of North American infrastructure
    The 2023 Freeways Without Futures report from the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) will feature ten local campaigns representing communities advocating for equity and reconnection during a time of reckoning for North American urban freeway infrastructure. The ten campaigns offer a roadmap to...Read more

  • A wall rises in Buffalo

    Even a city that is getting better makes mistakes, such as a massive concrete wall around a development in a city where population and urbanism are growing.
    In early March, 2020, days before the entire nation came to a sudden pandemic halt, I was in Buffalo, New York, for a charrette co-sponsored by CNU. It was brutally cold—as Buffalo can be in winter—and that may have contributed to my poor judgment (it’s hard to think clearly about urbanism when...Read more