• Bringing back the lost art of Main Street buildings

    Small-scale mixed-use buildings are popular in Norton Commons, a new urbanist community in Louisville; here’s the latest example.
    All over America, commercial districts are filled with small, 2- to 3-story buildings with commercial spaces on the first floor below residential units. These standard Main Street buildings, often made of brick, have been dubbed “live works” in recent decades. Live-work buildings are like mixed-use...Read more

  • Legacy Projects poised to make a difference

    Reports from Legacy Projects highlight the potential of Norwood, Xenia, Amelia, and Camp Washington, Ohio.
    CNU’s 2024 Legacy Projects reports highlight the long-term potential and a wide range of solutions for the Cincinnati region, where the Congress was held in May of this year. The Legacy Projects start about six months before the annual CNU Congress. They leverage CNU’s planning and design expertise...Read more

  • Apartments that engage the street

    Stoops, dooryards, and porches make more engaging street frontages for apartments than the typical common lawn.
    Urban apartment buildings have made great strides in engaging adjacent streetscapes over the last 25 years. On primary streets, building amenities allow for commercial-like frontages and expanses of glass storefronts. On residential streets, the ground-floor apartments often directly access the...Read more

  • Thinking globally, building locally

    A gathering in Italy will join new urbanists with international allies to explore and learn from great urbanism past and present.
    Cortona, Italy, may seem idyllic, but it faces many of the same challenges as other towns and rural regions in other countries: the need to provide viable economic opportunities, especially for young people; the need to build a healthy and resilient urbanism in the face of growing climate threats;...Read more