Tag: Bob Gibbs

Retail: Walkable urban primer with southwest inspiration

Hazel Borys
Hazel Borys Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
A couple weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of working with Bob Gibbs in Las Cruces, New Mexico, looking at ways to help downtown outperform the suburbs, helping Main Street be more profitable than strip malls. The top lessons were to nurture unique historic character in walkable formats and don't build leasable space... Continue Reading
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Lessons Learned from Berlin Shopfronts

Susan Henderson
Susan Henderson Instagram Facebook
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
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Retail on My Mind

Hazel Borys
Hazel Borys Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
Seems I’ve got retail on my mind. It all started in December, with Bob Gibb’s Placemaking@Work webinar, whose tweetchat sparked a Neighbourhood Retail BlogOff led by Steve Mouzon. Then last week Victor Dover’s PM@W webinar followed up with ideas about tactical retail, where he talked about the next version of mixed... Continue Reading
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Punk Rock and the New Urbanism: Getting back to basics

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
By the early to mid 1970s, something was wrong with rock and roll. It no longer fought the system. Worse than that, it had become the system. Bloated. Detached. Pretentious. Performer and audience, once fused in a mutual quest to stick it to the man, now existed on separate planes --  an increasingly complacent... Continue Reading
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Retail: When it bends the rules and breaks the law

Hazel Borys
Hazel Borys Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
Getting ready for a TEDx talk in a few weeks, I’ve once again been noticing how the places that I love the most usually break the law. The contemporary development codes and bylaws, that is, which are geared to the car, not to the pedestrian and cyclist. Then last week’s urban retail SmartCode tweetchat with Bob... Continue Reading
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Ignorance was Bliss: How my urban learnin’ almost ruined everyday places

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
For ten years I’ve been hanging around with a pretty interesting collection of traditional architects, planners and urban designers. That’s my job. Taking their inherent disciplinary wonkdom and simplifying it for wider appreciation. Doing so means I’m frequently on the sidelines as they work, and a consistent witness... Continue Reading
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Monkey See, Monkey Don’t: Economic Development as a whole new animal

Hazel Borys
Hazel Borys Twitter Facebook LinkedIn
In the economic development world, we're always trying to grow our economic base. And by that we mean goods and services that we export, not just what we use in our local markets. That might include university services, tourism, and any products that we pack and ship, or regional retail that we steal from our neighbors. We... Continue Reading
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How Trying Too Hard Messes Up Main Street

Scott Doyon
Scott Doyon Twitter Instagram Facebook
In taking on the foibles of our built environment, author James Howard Kunstler makes a point of noting that he’s neither an architect nor planner. Instead, he’s the everyman, and his profession is dutifully pointing out that the emperor has no clothes. I’m in a similar position. I’m not an architect or planner... Continue Reading
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