• Fighting to save a troubled city

    A documentary on Youngstown, Ohio, won top prize at the Better Cities Film Festival in Detroit.
    A feature film on Youngstown, Ohio, a city that exemplifies industrial decline, won the Grand Prize Best Feature Film award in 2021 from the Better Cities Film Festival . The Place That Makes Us , honored in Detroit this week, tells the story of people who stayed in Youngstown and worked to rebuild...Read more

  • Ten political benefits of walkable places

    This is fourth in a series of articles on the advantages of building human-scale cities and towns.
    There are many benefits to building walkable places and complete neighborhoods, backed up by research and common sense. A research report called Cities Alive by Arup, a multinational engineering and design firm, enumerated 50 advantages of walkable places. This article, the fourth in a series, is...Read more

  • The power of central social districts

    Main Streets, downtown cores, and neighborhood centers play a vital social role in American communities. The argument for Central Social Districts is that this social role should be nurtured distinctly for urban centers to succeed.
    Public Square editor Robert Steuteville interviewed economic development expert N. David Milder of DANTH, Inc., on Central Social Districts. Milder wrote a paper that was recently published in the American Downtown Revitalization Review . This is Part 1 of a two-part interview. RS: What is a...Read more

  • Vision of a town: Celebration of the physical planner

    US Route 20, the longest road in the nation, travels through many interesting and historic places in New York State. One that you have probably never heard of is Cazenovia, a town of 7,000 people, founded in 1793. Cazenovia is a kind of place that you stumble on to, and, if you are an urbanist, you...Read more