Tweet, Flick, Whatever: More Help or More Noise?
CNU 17, DENVER, CO – Adapt or die. That Darwinist admonition has been invoked to justify tons of brilliant and tons of stupid strategies for coping with change. It’s applied these days to the rise of Web-enabled social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter. And since New Urbanists are early adopters of new approaches to…
Read MoreNew Urbanist Cohousing: Another Arrow in Developers’ Quivers?
CNU 17, DENVER, CO – New Urbanists attending the 17th annual Congress of New Urbanism gathering in Denver will spend the next four days talking about alls sorts of overlapping , interconnected challenges: The uncertain economy, the implications of climate change, the impact of an aging society on land use planning, to name a few. About…
Read MoreNow What? CNU 17 Addresses the New Era Economy
The irony is unavoidable. Interest in Smart Growth and New Urbanist topics has never been higher. Check out this May 2 column in the Washington Post; or David Brooks’ opinion piece in the New York Times from May 4. Yet the economic downturn has sucked the energy out of innovative projects in both private and public sectors.…
Read MorePrince of Wales Argues (Again) for ‘Bottom Up’ Design
Addresses British Architects Who Aren’t Always Big Fans Twenty-five years after he prodded the Royal Institute of British Architects on the group’s 150th anniversary to consider making a little room for traditional approaches to architecture and planning, HRH The Prince of Wales appeared before the group on another anniversary to clarify the message. Though it’s…
Read More“Best Practices Guide” Debuts to Glowing Reviews
4th Edition of New Urban News Book Just Issued Here’s what got our attention: Miami architect/author/New Urbanist provocateur Steve Mouzon says the 2009 “Best Practices Guide” from the New Urban News “just might be the most useful single book on the New Urbanism I have ever seen.” (Read Steve’s complete review here). That’s hefty praise coming from…
Read MoreNext Step in Reforming Transportation Policy: T4 America’s “Blueprint”
Advocates for a different approach to transportation planning haven’t been delirious about the reluctance of the feds and DOTs to depart from business as usual when it comes to investing stimulus money. But there’s another chance. Transportation for America, a coalition of SmartGrowth-oriented organizations, is proposing a forward-looking agenda for the upcoming debate on reauthorizing…
Read MoreWhat We’re Reading: Leon Krier’s “Architecture of Community”
In 1984, Bruce Springsteen told Rolling Stone Magazine that he had albums of unreleased songs and that one day he would “put those out because there was good material in there.” In 1998, he did just that, releasing a beautiful 4-disc set of unreleased songs. Being a long-time devotee, I was more than a little…
Read MoreMouzon Green Home Design Featured in WSJ
Contrasts “Original Green” vs. “Gadget Green” Even before green building gathered momentum, Miami architect Steve Mouzon was determined to change the focus of the discussion. Green shouldn’t be just about the individual house in the here and now, he argued; it has to be about the broader community over time. Design and construction should build…
Read MoreKatrina Cottages Finding Traction on Gulf Coast
Neighborhood Sites in the Works Finally, after more than three and a half years, one of the key New Urbanist efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina on the Mississippi Gulf Coast is beginning to grow legs. And perhaps more importantly, the models being created have implications for affordable housing everywhere. (In the interest of…
Read MoreOn this Earth Day Anniversary: Hints of Convergence
Green meets Smart Growth meets Healthy Communities As 21st century crises and concerns began stacking up, it had begun to look as if Smart Growth priorities were going to have to compete for attention and resources with other burning issues. Such as: Climate change, peak oil, community affordability, health care costs, and now the struggling…
Read More