• CNUers rank among most influential urbanists, past and present

    The Planetizen list of top all-time urbanists confirms the outsized influence of new urbanist ideas among planners at the moment.
    Planetizen came out with a periodically updated list of the all-time most influential urbanists . I can’t take this list too seriously and the rankings may cause considerable head-scratching (What do those ranked above Vitruvius, downgraded to number 67 , think? If I could wager who on the list...Read more

  • Florida’s success with context-based street classification

    If context-based street design works in the most automobile-dominated state, it can make a difference anywhere.
    Attempts to create walkable places become an order of magnitude more difficult when state-owned thoroughfares are involved. The laudable goal of creating a human-scale neighborhood may descend into a multiyear battle—sometimes won by planners, more often by the engineers—and the outcome is nearly...Read more

  • New college town for South Bend

    The outcome of two decades of planning and implementation, Eddy Street is one of the more impressive new urban neighborhoods built adjacent to a university.
    South Bend’s Eddy Street neighborhood, located just south of the University of Notre Dame, was completed in 2020 after a 20-year process of planning and implementation. The result is one of the most impressive new “college towns” in the US. The 48-acre neighborhood includes a main street that has...Read more

  • Food trucks and people friendly cities

    What can the humble food truck teach us about Urbanism?
    Walking home after an afternoon class one day at my alma mater, UW - Madison, I decided to walk through Library Mall. Library Mall is a pedestrian-only plaza surrounded by public buildings: two libraries (shocker I know), the UW bookstore, a church, and several other university buildings. From...Read more