• Sprawl Retrofit

    Case Studies
    After half a century of mounting economic, health, environmental, and social consequences, America has finally begun to turn away from the post-WWII pattern of suburban sprawl. Across diverse populations, preferences are broadly shifting towards walkable, mixed-use places—and real estate markets...Read more

  • Mashpee Commons

    The first suburban retrofit gets a neighborhood
    Transformation of the former New Seabury Shopping Center in Mashpee, Massachusetts, into a town center began 30 years ago. The early-1960s strip mall at the intersection of two state highways on Cape Cod was fading and needed refurbishment. Mashpee, a suburban municipality located between two older...Read more

  • Downtown Woodstock, Georgia

    Enhancing a town’s main street character
    Until 2000, Woodstock, Georgia, was a small town with a population of about 10,000—but encroaching Atlanta sprawl threatened to engulf the community in cookie-cutter projects. The town needed a way to preserve and enhance its main street character in the face of growth. The 32-acre Woodstock...Read more

  • Belmar

    A dead mall becomes a downtown for a sprawling suburb
    Although Lakewood, Colorado, is the fifth largest city in the state, until the last decade the city had no true downtown. Instead, the Denver suburb boasted one of the country’s largest indoor shopping malls, built in the 1960s—but by 2000, that mall was mostly vacant. The development is anchored...Read more