Tag: Scott Doyon

Not so long ago, fellow urban scribe and recently elected mayor of Concrete, Washington, Jason Miller, recommended the book, “13 Ways to Kill Your Community.” The timing was fortuitous. For a while, in an ongoing series of internal conversations, I’d been wrestling with a fundamental question of human nature: Are... Continue Reading

The places we inhabit are rarely if ever arbitrary. They’re the products of intention. Personal. Economic. Environmental. Religious. We choose for ourselves, individually and collectively, the kind of places we want and -- through leadership, policy, investment, advocacy, action and, at times, inaction -- those places... Continue Reading

Last week I spent some time in the mountains of southern Virginia visiting my folks. That’s something I not only enjoy but find productive as well, as it affords me opportunity to further explain exactly what it is I do for a living. For some reason, “telling the story of community placemaking” still leaves them... Continue Reading

Git ‘Er Done | Hazel BorysThis year's CNU was all about doing again, unlike the past few years where we've focused on stop-gap measures to redirect our investment choices to more resilient patterns. Looks like they might be starting to pay off. Still, we have plenty of hard work ahead to remove both legal... Continue Reading

Following up on their debut episode, “Sprawlanta,” the good folks at First + Main Media have unveiled the latest installment in their “American Makeover” documentary series: “Seaside: The City of Ideas.” (Disclosure: PlaceMakers is a sponsor of the series.) In it, town designer Andrés Duany leads a guided... Continue Reading

Slow and steady progress is built on an ongoing series of course corrections. Subtle variations in direction based on new variables, new challenges, and new innovations. As times and circumstances change, some things inevitably become less productive. Or effective. Or conducive to contemporary sensibilities. So, we... Continue Reading

Taking shots at the suburbs is like playing bass in a garage band: Easy to do, but hard to do well. After all, their original intent -- an idyllic melding of town and country, with all the advantages of both -- implied a tranquil, family-friendly promise that, over time, has proven notoriously unfulfilled. Surely that’s... Continue Reading

I live in an old house that overlooks a single-track CSX rail line. Between my front gate and the train is a two-lane, neighborhood-edge thoroughfare with a speed limit of 35 mph and an average speed closer to 40. Though it functions as an in-town, city street, it’s classified as a state highway by the Georgia DOT,... Continue Reading

It wasn’t intentional but a look back at the past few weeks of PlaceShakers reveals that we’ve been working a bit of a theme. It began when I wrote about the failure of planners to ask meaningful questions, and how that not only sets the stage for unmet community expectations, but devalues the art and craft of... Continue Reading

Community fascinates me. Not just the idea of it, but the dynamics, and how those dynamics end up stoking or choking our collective efforts to be together. Having worked in a lot of different places, I’ve had opportunity to study community in action, at both its strongest and weakest, in all different contexts -- economic,... Continue Reading