Addressing the urban design issues of our time

Note: I sat down with 2026 Charter Awards Jury Chair Eric Kronberg to discuss his New Urbanist background and experience with CNU’s Charter Awards. The conversation has been edited for clarity. Learn more about the 2026 Charter Awards application here. 

Eric Kronberg came to New Urbanism slowly and then all at once. He was reading papers about CNU in the late 1990s but didn’t fully engage with the focus of New Urbanism until CNU came to Atlanta in 2008. “I was reading Walkable City and Happy City in 2012 when I realized I really needed to get to Buffalo (CNU 22) to really engage. I haven’t looked back since,” he says.

As a principal at Kronberg Urbanists + Architects (KUA), Eric leads the firm’s skilled practitioners to help development partners create better places for all. And his nine years teaching for the Incremental Development Alliance motivated him to co-found Inc Codes, an incremental code reform company helping mid-sized cities take the next step towards legalizing better places. 

“Urbanism is f’ing complicated. You can’t be successful, particularly as an architect, if you don’t understand all the complexities of all the systems that impact our places,” Eric says. “It’s built on the foundation of knowledge from CNU, and all the teaching we’ve done for Inc Dev, then layering in foundational learning provided by Strong Towns and Urban3, and you have the work we are doing with amazing partners across the country.”

This knowledge and partnership has resulted in KUA’s work winning multiple Charter Awards. “We won the grand prize with our first submission and have been hooked ever since,” Eric says. That winning project was Iberville Offsites in New Orleans, LA that won the grand prize in 2015. Additional winning projects include: Peoples Health New Orleans Jazz Market in 2016, Parsons Alley in 2017, LaFrance Walk in 2018, Grace Midtown Church in 2021, and Finley Street Cottages in 2024. 

Eric was a jury member for the 2025 Charter Awards and is now chairing the jury in 2026. When it comes to what the jury is looking for from this year’s nominees, he says, “We are looking for projects that are looking to address the challenges of our time. Attainability is a core plank of this, but so is mobility flexibility, and how projects relate to climate change, and human flourishing generally.”

New Urbanism has reached an important threshold that allows the jury to focus more on built work. The jury strongly prefers built or implemented work yet also recognizes that “built” means something different at each scale. Jurors value examples of the actual use of finished projects and encourage applicants to offer evidence of the ways in which their projects are populated and enjoyed by people. Entries are also judged by the extent to which they fulfill and advance the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism. 

With the submissions this year, Eric would like to see more projects from groups that are working hard across scales to improve their places. “You need to tell a story, and when you are submitting slides, they don’t have to be just photos,” he adds.  

Eric will not be the only one evaluating projects. The jury that has been assembled represents a diversity of practices and perspectives within the New Urbanism so projects can be evaluated holistically. This year’s jury is: Eric Kronberg, Majora Carter, Marques King, Jeremy Lake, Joanna Lombard, Rico Quirindongo, and Ashley Terry. 

Charter Award winners are celebrated at CNU’s annual Congress and demonstrate the impact of Charter principles worldwide. The 2026 Congress will be in Northwest Arkansas on May 12-16, 2026. “The cross knowledge gathering of CNU is so superior to other gatherings to help expose people to all these different pieces of the puzzle,” Eric says. 

Submissions for the 2026 Charter Awards are open now and due December 2, 2025. Learn more and submit your projects here.