Category: Development

Across the United States, cities are grappling with housing shortages and the challenge of revitalizing underutilized spaces. Vacant malls, abandoned factories, shuttered schools, and empty churches often sit idle, wasting valuable potential. But these structures don’t have to remain relics of the past. Through adaptive... Continue Reading

In the seven months since I blogged last, many of us have turned our attention to cataloguing and collecting planning practices of how cities, towns and suburbs are responding to COVID-19 in an attempt to rebuild health and opportunity. Thanks to those of you who contributed to the PlaceMakers Pandemic Response Compendium,... Continue Reading

This is the second in a series of conversations about what comes next in local government policies and processes. Geoff Koski is president of the Bleakly Advisory Group, providing advice to real estate professionals, governments, and non-profit organizations dealing with a wide- range of real estate and economic development-related... Continue Reading

I’m suspicious of the words “neighborhood character” in defensive mode. If they once signaled a community characteristic worth prioritizing, the've lately become weaponized. A dog whistle for opposition to everything from granny flats to transit to, you know, change. But I’m definitely okay when the character of... Continue Reading

Originally published almost four years ago and every bit as relevant today. I have spent most of the last twenty years working on an agenda grounded in, for lack of a better phrase, “smart growth.”  That agenda basically holds that our regions must replace suburban sprawl with more compact forms of growth and... Continue Reading

On my PlaceMakers business card, my job title is “Storyteller.” I figured a graduate degree in English and a two-decade career in journalism gave me a certain amount of credibility in that department. What I didn’t count on, however, was what the title seemed to imply to most folks. To them, I was the spin doctor. “We’ve... Continue Reading

Gentrification gets a lot of attention these days, and rightfully so. Particularly as it relates to issues of displacement. No one (or at least no one of heart) wants to see anyone forced from their home and from the community they care for and that, oftentimes, cares for them. The dangled carrot of economic opportunity,... Continue Reading

They may not be new but I was recently introduced to a series of comics by English artist Grayson Perry taking on the world of creative arts, particularly one entitled “Gentrification.” The tale is familiar. Old industry fades, artists take possession of the infrastructure, ragtag commerce blossoms and, ultimately,... Continue Reading

As most of us at PlaceMakers settle into Seattle for this week’s 25th Congress for the New Urbanism, we look forward to seeing many of you on the west coast. For those of you who can’t make this year’s congress, be sure to check in with the social media hashtag, #CNU25. We’ll bring you a recap of some of our favourite... Continue Reading

Yesterday the Atlantic ran a piece on the Great Retail Meltdown of 2017 which, to summarize, tied the present culling of the retail herd to three phenomena: the rise of online shopping; a half century of overbuilding retail space; and the present shift in spending from goods to experiences. In short, with people increasingly... Continue Reading