The winners of the 2001 Charter Awards

The winners of the 2001 Charter Awards are celebrated in a 32-page booklet available from CNU. The publication shows how these 15 projects fulfilled the principles of the Charter of the New Urbanism, and why the jurors picked them from the 208 excellent entries. The heavily illustrated book is available for $14.95 on the CNU website, CNU.org. As part of the nationwide trend to tame state highways where they pass through towns, CNU Director of Advisory Services Ellen Greenberg and Task Force and Program Manager Sarah Pulleyblank are writing a manual for California municipalities. The book will clarify the political process of making state highways into livable streets. The goal is for both local governments and the state department of transportation to recognize the need for civilized state highways, and to have a clear process for creating such streets. In April, CNU conducted the last in a series of four trainings for staff of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the staff of local housing authorities. The topic: Development and design strategies for mixed-use, mixed-income communities. The sessions got rave reviews from participants, with almost every evaluation coming back as “excellent.” Our next Hope VI-related project is a design manual. CNU's recent successful publication, "Greyfields into Goldfields," was just the first in a series of reports on how to turn failing shopping centers into neighborhoods. The next phase of our research examines a dozen sites that have actually been turned into new urbanist neighborhoods. A preliminary report should be ready in time for the Congress. u