Category: Planning and Design
A New Path to Code Reform
The Users' Guide to Code Reform leads planners through the code reform process, providing tools for governments lacking the capacity to develop a full form-based code.
The Project for Code Reform is one of the most important efforts we’ve had the privilege of contributing to in the last decade. We’ve spent most... Continue Reading
The Human Scale
I recently watched The Human Scale again, a film from 2013, and felt the anticipation building to meet Jan Gehl at the 26th Congress for the New Urbanism (#CNU26) in Savannah next week, and at home in Winnipeg in September. I'm sure Jan will bring us an update on his city planning work in the last five years, but the ideas... Continue Reading
Tools to Stop Coming Up Short on Affordable Housing
In the weeks before the Congress for the New Urbanism conference in Savannah, GA, May 15-19, we’re presenting interviews with experts contributing to a day-long exploration of “Affordability: The Intersection of Everything.” A three-hour morning forum on Thursday, May 17, kicks off the discussion, followed by two... Continue Reading
The Science is In: The healthiest neighborhoods are both walkable and green
Most of us, most of the time, don’t make much connection between place – the neighborhoods where we live, work, and play – and our health. Not unless we’re thinking of such obvious local health concerns as an outbreak of infectious disease in the community, serious levels of pollution or toxicity nearby, or... Continue Reading
Moving Beyond “Smart Growth” to a More Holistic City Agenda
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
Resolved for 2018: Fewer delusions, more reality-based planning
Okay, so we’re shaking off the shock therapy of 2017 and ready to move on, right?
Let’s start with admitting some of the stuff a lot of us got wrong about challenges and solutions in municipal and regional planning. Such as: Our misplaced overconfidence in the stability of basic institutions, especially those requiring... Continue Reading
CNU 26: Gearing Up
In this week's post, PlaceMaker Susan Henderson offers a deep dive into the instructive charms of Savannah, Georgia.
Click below to launch.
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Category Planning and Design
Tags CNU 26, Susan Henderson
Year End Reflections: Gratitude for Livable Places
As the year draws to a close, reflection is an important rite of passage: celebrating, mourning, learning, and letting go. 2017 has not been the sort of year in which gratitude is the obvious emotion of choice on many levels. Yet the act of searching for what is beneficial, transformative, and noteworthy helps process... Continue Reading
Category Economic Development, Environment | Sustainability, Health, Planning and Design, Public Policy, Resilience
Tags Hazel Borys, Resilience
The Sidewalk to Hell is Paved with Good Intentions
Sometimes all the right people seem to be at the table, all singing from similar hymnals, and all seemingly focused on transcending growth-as-usual and yet, still, the results fall flat.
Today we look at one of those times.
The scenario
Imagine this:
A site area that retailers describe as a “100% corner.”... Continue Reading
Tags mixed-use, Scott Doyon
Storytelling Part II: Getting to Getting Things Done
First a review:
In a post last month, I made a pitch for organizing community storytelling around getting stuff done. I acknowledged how hard it is to do that in the current political environment, which is increasingly an arena of competing tribal identities and mutually exclusive convictions:
A community that has... Continue Reading
Category Community Development, Planning and Design, Public Engagement, Public Policy, Theory and Practice
Tags Ben Brown, storytelling