• Want some Walk Appeal with your tacos?

    Here's how great walking environments benefit eating and drinking establishments (and vice-versa).
    Restaurants in places with good Walk Appeal are inherently less fattening than unwalkable ones because meals come with embedded exercise. I just walked to my favorite restaurant and back, and burned 113 calories. That might not seem like a lot, but 113 calories each day for a year is enough to lose...Read more

  • Dynamic urbanism in semi-traditional cities

    Cities that blend old and new are helping to define urbanism in the 21st Century.
    US cities can be divided into three categories based on physical characteristics. I have written about “traditional cities,” with streets built mostly before 1950, and “sprawling cities,” which grew big during the “age of sprawl” from 1950 to 2010. In between these two extremes are “semi-...Read more

  • Sense of place is real

    “Sense of place” is not some nebulous, mystical idea. Sense of place is the emotional or psychological reaction to "place," as shown in the graphic above, created by Michigan State Housing Development Authority (MSHDA). Communities and neighborhoods with good physical form evoke that psychological...Read more

  • Jane Jacobs was right

    Older and smaller buildings and a wide range in building age offer real economic and social benefits for neighborhoods and urban centers.
    This year is the centenary of Jane Jacobs's birth. Two years ago, the National Trust for Historic Preservation tested her theories on old buildings and walkable places, releasing a report called Older, Smaller, Better that strongly supports many of her observations on cities. This month, a follow-...Read more