Category: Development

The 22nd annual gathering of the CNU wrapped up Saturday night, June 7, in Buffalo. We’re looking forward to the recordings at cnu.org over the next few weeks to fill the inevitable gaps, since the competing sessions and hallway conversations presented the usual embarrassment of riches. Rather than go for a tidy... Continue Reading

Hi. I'm Hazel and I was a Sprawlaholic. If you've been reading awhile you may recall that, with the loving help of my friends and family, I went cold turkey, dumping life in a Florida subdivision for the intense urban charms of downtown Winnipeg. It was a life-changing move with no regrets. Yet, as good as it's been,... Continue Reading

Throughout my professional career, whenever a new or innovative approach is taken on a development project, its title automatically defaults to that of ‘Pilot Project.’ It occurs so often that I am changing my title to ‘Pilot Project Pilot’ as I would then be involved with pretty much every development proposal... Continue Reading

In her September 2011 blog, Special Districts Getting All Mixed Up, Hazel Borys questioned why we treat large format areas with distinctive uses, such as manufacturing or aviation, as “special” to the point of exclusion from our efforts to integrate all urban land uses and activities into a spatially coherent whole,... Continue Reading

Git ‘Er Done | Hazel BorysThis year's CNU was all about doing again, unlike the past few years where we've focused on stop-gap measures to redirect our investment choices to more resilient patterns. Looks like they might be starting to pay off. Still, we have plenty of hard work ahead to remove both legal... Continue Reading

I tend to take the road less traveled. For whatever reason, conventional approaches have never interested me. And the process I came up with for my city’s comp plan was no different. Why? Well, first off, conventionalism leads to..... "BORING!" (Yell it out like no one can hear you!) (more…) Continue Reading

The other day, I was riding my bike from a deeply walkable, bikeable neighbourhood to a more auto-dominated environment, and I was struck again by the tactile response when you’re walking or biking through this change. In the walkable neighbourhood, fellow cyclists were in the streets or in bike lanes, mixing safely... Continue Reading

"For forty-one million, you built a playoff team. You lost Damon, Giambi, Isringhausen, Peña and you won more games without them than you did with them. You won the exact same number of games that the Yankees won, but the Yankees spent one point four million per win and you paid two hundred and sixty thousand. I know... Continue Reading

As the planning profession roils in the confluence of the 21st century’s Great Recession, Peak Oil/Peak Auto Travel, Millennial [Re]urbanization, and the borderline religious fervor of sustainability, I have officially declared that ours is not the same planning profession John Nolen built. So, how can planning rebuild... Continue Reading

A while back, we talked about Connections, Community, and the Science of Loneliness, and how our laws have separated not just building uses -- residential, commercial, retail, civic -- but have also separated people. And that separation has led to a spate of ills -- ill health, ill economies, and ill environments. We looked... Continue Reading