Scott Doyon
Can Preservationists Let Love Rule?
Call me naive.
When I was first exposed to the New Urbanism in the 1990s, it was as a 9 to 5 ad-man with an appreciation for music and art. Killing time one day in my dentist’s waiting room, I stumbled upon “Bye-Bye Suburban Dream,” the cover story of the latest Newsweek magazine.
I still remember the feeling... Continue Reading
Popsicles and the Importance of Simplicity
Back in June, I wrote a piece about how, compared to sprawl, smart growth produces places better suited to raising children. The overall takeaway was simple: When kids are able to navigate the world around them, manage conflicts, make decisions, screw up and recover, they’re better off for it. And place is a big contributor... Continue Reading
Smart Growth = Smart Parenting
Put the village on hold. For the time being, it’s gonna take a parent, a councilman and a developer to raise a child.
Flashback 2003: Attending the New Partners for Smart Growth conference in New Orleans, I caught the keynote from a planning official for Vancouver, British Columbia. Now, under normal circumstances,... Continue Reading
The Future of Planning: Going meta
“In a world where the peddlers of invention dominate progressive discourse, a willingness to acknowledge--let alone heed--the lessons of history and tradition is a truly radical act.” --Scott Doyon
Check the wiki-hip Urban Dictionary (or watch an episode of Community on NBC) and you’ll find the term meta’s common... Continue Reading
Category Planning and Design, Public Policy
Ignorance was Bliss: How my urban learnin’ almost ruined everyday places
For ten years I’ve been hanging around with a pretty interesting collection of traditional architects, planners and urban designers. That’s my job. Taking their inherent disciplinary wonkdom and simplifying it for wider appreciation. Doing so means I’m frequently on the sidelines as they work, and a consistent witness... Continue Reading
Settle Down Now: Is community the new frontier for Generation X?
In 1992, Rage Against the Machine’s Zach De La Rocha offered a dire warning to a restless but aimless Generation X: “If we don’t take action now,” he sang, “we’ll settle for nothing later.” An anthemic rallying cry and yet, just ten years thereafter, Death Cab for Cutie’s Ben Gibbard was introducing those... Continue Reading
Category Public Engagement, Public Policy
Unplug! Accommodating Our Need to Escape Each Other
Sense of community. It’s been a rallying cry of New Urbanists since the beginning and for good reason. For years leading up to the birth of the neo-traditionalists, it didn’t take much effort to realize that our surroundings had changed—a lot—and not for the better.
Our neighborhoods—subdivisions, really—were... Continue Reading
Branded! Municipal Identity and the Selling of Cities
What does America’s oldest city have in common with one of its youngest? They’re both concerned with branding.
St. Augustine, Florida, kicked off their branding initiative in 1715 by petitioning the King of Spain for a coat of arms. Upon his receipt, the King assumedly delegated the request to his creative services... Continue Reading
Fat-tastic! Can Small Thinking Solve Our Super-Sized Problems?
According to a new report from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -- more commonly known for crunching global budget and employment numbers -- the United States is on track to be 75% obese by 2020.
3 out of every 4. And if you check with researchers at Johns Hopkins University, they’ll... Continue Reading
The Suburbs: Arcade Fire, Childhood Memory, and the Future of Growth
I’m in my 40s. I grew up in the suburbs. It was awesome. And then it wasn’t.
Never before and, perhaps, never again will there be as efficient and reliable a machine for manufacturing idealized childhood memories. The suburbs of the 60s and 70s, maybe even the 80s, were like some sort of paradise.
(more…) Continue Reading