• Public space, identity politics, and civic collaboration

    All politics is local—and to that we could add, all politics is rooted in the public spaces we share at the local level.
    American new urbanists are famously cross-partisan. Former CNU president John Norquist was a Democratic mayor of Milwaukee Wisconsin, and former board member Mike Krusee was a Republican Texas legislator. You can find a New Urbanism page on The American Conservative website, and another one on The...Read more

  • Families, cities, and schools

    Urban living with kids, part three: For cities vying for the best and brightest, a mixed-use urban neighborhood with a great public school is a slam dunk.
    One of the largest market demands on the horizon consists of young couples seeking affordable urban living with kids. However, a big challenge for many parents in seeking an urban lifestyle has do to with the quality of urban schools. This issue has caused many young couples once they have children...Read more

  • Ten reasons to build community through urban design

    There are two models for development of cities and towns. One, the neighborhood model, founded on thousands of years of trial and error, brings people together.
    We build cities that bring us together or push us apart. "Gated communities" are an obvious example of building to isolate, but other methods are also common. Streets that are too wide, with fast moving traffic, divide us. So do zoning codes that separate uses and housing types. Berms, buffers,...Read more

  • Jane Jacobs would be fighting to preserve affordable housing

    Note: This article was written as a speech to the first annual Jane Jacobs Award at Met Council Housing. Jane Jacobs wrote 12 wide-ranging, brilliant books. In them she wove together ideas about cities, city life, politics, economics, and social and cultural issues, so it’s hard to succinctly...Read more