• A street ballet to aspire to, from the Dutch

    The Netherlands is one of the happiest places on Earth . This video by Active Towns founder John Simmerman gives a reason why. On the last day of a visit, Simmerman recorded a typical morning commute in Delft, a historic city of just over 100,000 people. For US residents, imagining going to work in...Read more

  • Planning for climate change and aging

    Older Americans are the most vulnerable population in a natural disaster and provide the key to making communities more resilient for everyone, argues Danielle Arigoni, author of Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation.
    Danielle Arigoni discusses her new book on how communities with aging populations can prepare for climate change on On the Park Bench . Climate Resilience for an Aging Nation argues that older adults should be the lens through which we view resilient communities. When we plan for those most...Read more

  • Habersham marks 25 years of community building

    South Carolina development offers convincing lessons for how builders, developers, and architects can create a successful new town.
    Habersham, South Carolina, broke ground in 1998, after Robert Turner developed Newpoint in Beaufort and an affordable infill project in Port Royal—all located in the state’s Lowcountry. Habersham is a quarter century old and one of the best-known and most influential traditional neighborhood...Read more

  • Why we need to design community into neighborhoods

    The author of Fragile Neighborhoods urges urban planners to take on a vital domestic challenge: Help restore the social function of neighborhoods.
    Improving the physical design of the built environment is not enough, argues author Seth Kaplan. He contends that healthy communities need formal and informal institutions that promote social interaction for humans to thrive. “We can’t just build with a vision of the built environment; we need a...Read more