A Placemaking Journal

Even before last week’s official release of Pope Francis’s encyclical on climate change, advocates and defenders were honing their talking points. In April, liberal Catholic author Gary Wills upped the ante on what was anticipated -- accurately, it turns out -- as the the pontiff’s vigorous critique of global inequities... Continue Reading

Last week, passing my Canadian citizenship exam was a poignant moment for me. I am grateful to have dual citizenship in Canada and the US, with the right to live and work in both great countries. I realize that we often spend time on this blog talking about what stands in the way of great placemaking, but I enjoyed over... Continue Reading

Recent trips to Spain and Germany have me appreciating the nuances of three plazas I had the pleasure of experiencing. Each plaza was a different character and scale from the other, which if I had to sum up simply, I’d call Salamanca’s Plaza Mayor: A City Plaza, Berlin’s Gendarmenmarkt: A Civic Plaza, and Zafra’s... Continue Reading

When we look back on this period, we might discover that the effort to ramp up realistic approaches to the challenges of community affordability reached some sort of tipping point in the spring and summer of 2015. (more…) Continue Reading

Lately I’ve been thinking about “health, safety, and general welfare” -- the basis by which zoning is typically legitimized and measured -- and wondering just how great a disconnect needs to form between our purported values and our land use regulations before we admit that something’s not working. (more…) Continue Reading

A couple of weeks ago, my wife Sharon and I were out for a long neighborhood walk. This is not unusual for us, but on this particular day we took a route we hadn't walked in quite some time. I was pleased to notice that one of the traditional, colonial-style houses we encountered was sporting solar panels on its roof. Continue Reading

Having just wrapped up what may have been our favorite CNU ever, in Dallas on April 29 through May 2, we want to share some of the ideas that resonated the most with us. The topics below are snippets of great insights from many voices, including the likes of Andrés Duany, Fort Worth Mayor Betsy Price, Doug Farr, and... Continue Reading

Let’s take a wild stab at a generalization: Success at building a business or growing a non-profit or making a community more livable depends a lot on trust. You have to keep delivering what you promise to get people to keep buying what you’re selling. (more…) Continue Reading

Steve Jobs ended one of his most memorable speeches with the encouragement, “Stay hungry. Stay foolish.” He was quoting the message on the final page of the final publication of The Whole Earth Catalog, Stewart Brand’s version of pre-Google, assembled with typewriters, polaroid’s and scissors. Jobs’ point for... Continue Reading

“What a bunch of idiots. Don’t they know this will create a traffic nightmare?” Sound familiar? It’s the most commonly voiced complaint any time the community conversation turns to traffic calming. Taken at face value, it’s not an outrageous sentiment. After all, when you’re out and about, anything that... Continue Reading