Category: Resilience

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

Despite the changing needs and priorities of an aging population, many US municipalities have restricted housing types that could help address the challenges of a generational shift. In this week's post, PlaceMaker Susan Henderson explores housing approaches outside the norm of the single family home. Abergavenny, a charming... 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 a case study of the application of Scott’s argument that will be presented at the upcoming virtual Congress, CNU28, during the Wednesday, June 10, 2:30pm EDT session, New Tools for Urban Resilience, as well as part of our ongoing series in support of urbanist COVID-19 policy discussions. Among the lessons... Continue Reading

This is the first of several posts planned for the next few weeks on lessons we’re learning from the pandemic and how local and regional governments might respond – not only to the crisis itself, but also to weaknesses in policies and processes COVID-19 exposed. Let’s start with an understatement: Community development... Continue Reading

In this time of social distancing without a clear time frame, I’m feeling the need to share some of the things I’ve learned over 17 years of working from a home office. It’s clear that the novel corona virus will disrupt our previous ways of doing business, but it’s possible some parts of that may be good, eventually. Continue Reading

In the weeks before the Congress for the New Urbanism conference in Savannah, Georgia, 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... Continue Reading

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

Though it surely happens in sports at all levels, there’s one phenomenon that’s particularly common in youth sports: A game in which you’re so outmatched, so fundamentally inferior to your opponent that the outcome, minus Divine or supernatural intervention, is essentially guaranteed. You’re going to lose. ... 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