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The term “Missing Middle Housing” has become a popular reference to middle-density, low-rise housing that has been missing from most new construction over the past half century. Examples include accessory dwelling units (ADUs), cottage courts,...
A video of construction shows the public spaces taking shape at the innovative Culdesac Tempe, in Arizona. Designer: “Car-free is the future of New Urbanism.”
This photo of Jackson Square, New Orleans, was shot with a drone by architect and urban designer Steve Mouzon. A photographer and author of The Original Green, Mouzon has been using a drone for urban photography for the last seven months, and is ...
Lately I’ve been thinking about major opportunities for urbanism—places where compact, mixed-use development makes the most sense in cities and towns nationwide. Transit-oriented development—building walkable, urban projects near transit stations—is...
Congestion costs drive highway expansion decisions, but these costs are dwarfed by the impact of automobile crashes. Comparing the two points to a better strategy than widening thoroughfares.
At CNU 30 in Oklahoma City planner Stephen Goldie presented an idea that has been in the works for several years, building on the rural-to-urban Transect. Goldie calls it the “Periodic Table of Urbanism,” see image at top, because it resembles the...
Transportation is a major source of household carbon emissions, and these emissions are reduced dramatically as Transect zones become more urban, as shown in this slide, presented by Scott Bernstein at CNU 30 in Oklahoma City in late March. I have...
It’s a pity that Apple chose a 20th Century model for construction of its headquarters. Our collective attention spans are short in 2022, and Apple’s massive office building landed like a spaceship in the sprawl of Silicon Valley more than four...
This cartoon by Jean Wei for Transportation for America perfectly depicts what happened to so many American downtowns and main streets in the latter half of the 20th Century. Older cities and towns faced many problems at the time, not the least of...
New Urbanist places sometimes get the reputation of looking like movie sets, especially some of the well-known developments like Celebration (built by Disney), and Seaside, which did serve as a set for the 1998 film The Truman Show (the filmmakers...
The Memphis Medical District is a 2.6-square-mile area that has gained plenty of jobs, but has lost most of its population in the last 50 years. The area has loads of institutional buildings and surface parking lots, and many underutilized blocks....
This view of Valletta, Malta, by urbanist Dhiru Thadani, drawn from a peninsula that extends out to in the harbor, doesn’t seem to have changed much in centuries. A photo of the same view, easy to find on the Internet, reveals a few...