• An accidental urban entertainment district

    Lexington’s Warehouse Block is the outcome of 40 years of incremental development. It could be a replicable model for cities to recycle old commercial districts into social centers over time.
    Randy Walker moved his electrical contracting business into a disinvested industrial building in Lexington, Kentucky, 40 years ago, and started buying nearby abandoned buildings and fixing them up. The revitalization steadily expanded into the 13-acre Warehouse Block , an urban entertainment...Read more

  • How could Complete Streets policies be more effective?

    The Complete Streets movement has largely failed in practice, but a focus on networks and context could make it more effective.
    In a 2011 planning advisory board meeting for a county where I lived, I delivered the exciting news about New York State’s then-new Complete Streets Act, which “requires state, county and local agencies to consider the convenience and mobility of all users when developing transportation projects...Read more

  • Not quite urban, an ‘intentional neighborhood’ breaks ground

    Polestar Village brings a health and wellness focus to Radburn-like community that is centered on a community garden.
    Today I highlight a project that is not New Urbanism. It is a hybrid between NU and conventional design. Polestar Village , scheduled to break ground in February in Fort Collins, Colorado, is described as “semi-urban.” “We call it an ‘Intentional Neighborhood’ and it will include a walkable Village...Read more

  • A European feel in Oklahoma

    The trend of inner-block development is very cool. This sweet little project, called Townsend in Edmond, Oklahoma, is breaking ground with two live-work units, 18 townhouses, and 13,000 square feet of commercial space on about an acre. Austin Tunnell, founder of Building Culture & Apollo, which...Read more