A Placemaking Journal

You've heard my fellow Placeshaker, Scott Doyon, say Smart Growth = Smart Parenting. More than once, actually. As well as how living in a walkable neighbourhood may shape our children. I've also talked about how my winter city, Winnipeg, nurtures active kids, as well as put some of those ideas into a TEDxTalk. Last... Continue Reading

Like many European cities, Berlin teaches us myriad lessons in building successful shopfronts. While the exclusive international shops along Kurfürstendamm and Friedrichstrasse are elegant and effective, the more creative successes are found in neighborhoods and courtyards. Kaid Benfield’s People Habitat describes in... Continue Reading

We've talked extensively here on PlaceShakers about how to integrate industrial uses into walkable neighborhoods. And the sorts of land use modifications, often via form-based codes, that are necessary to enable these uses within safe parameters. This week in Berlin, I was particularly inspired by the example set by... Continue Reading

By Wednesday morning, we’ll know which political party gained and which lost ground in Congress. As for learning about the direction of federal policy and its short-term impacts in states, regions and local communities: Not so much. But not for long. That’s because time is running out on the baked-in paralysis in... Continue Reading

Kaid Benfield, newly-announced ‘Senior Counsel’ for PlaceMakers. Many of you know -- or know of -- Kaid Benfield, who’s led smart growth and sustainability initiatives at the Natural Resources Defense Council for two decades. Kaid is stepping down from his NRDC post. And we’re delighted to announce that he’ll... Continue Reading

Hello, you in the hazmat suit. Can we talk? Though no one can authoritatively predict, from an epidemiology perspective, what will happen next, Ebola reached new levels of infection in the body politic last week. Republicans and Democrats seem pretty sure they’ve identified likely sources of toxicity. And it should... Continue Reading

For the last several decades, North American cities have used growth as a primary economic engine. Increasingly less dense new growth is subsidized by the more dense core, but requires a growth rate that is not supportable by the market cycle in most places today. As growth rates stalled, decreased, or went negative, city... Continue Reading

Placemaking often comes down to preserving, repairing, or intensifying urban or rural landscapes with public spaces at the heart of each neighborhood. Creative placemaking can take that to another level, helping to tease out the character of a place and celebrate it in an unusually insightful and invigorating way. A way... Continue Reading

Okay. So here we are, out west, working on a county-level comprehensive plan. It’s a big county, which means that each day we meet in the lobby of our centrally-located hotel, then journey caravan-style out to one of the various communities we’re serving over the course of a week. Until we get where we’re going,... Continue Reading

Thanks to all of you who made last week's Why Placemaking Matters: What's in it for me? conversation so interesting. Robert Steuteville, editor of Better! Cities & Towns, jumped in with his own elevator pitch that beautifully connects much of the wonk-speak that I listed last week. Kaid Benfield from Washington D.C. Continue Reading