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Kigali, Lower East Side plans top Charter Awards

A student project to radically rethink housing projects on New York’s Lower East Side and a holistic approach to a Rwandan village took top honors at the 2013 CNU Charter Awards, announced at CNU 21 in Salt Lake City.

The great American grid debate, and other CNU news

This debate was the most entertaining session I think I've ever attended at a Congress for the New Urbanism!

Bringing walkable urban thoroughfares to Twinsburg, Ohio

On April 26, CNU hosted a technical assistance workshop aimed at guiding future development and design in the City of Twinsburg, Ohio, and highlighting the Designing Walkable Urban Thoroughfares manual as a tool for achieving that vision.

The dark side of New York’s Airbnb regulations

A New York City judge recently ruled to make the renting of apartments on Airbnb illegal, limiting the diversity in services that makes the city cheaper, more entrepreneurial, and worth visiting.

Homicide charges dropped for Georgia woman, cause celebre for pedestian activists

Raquel Nelson pays a jaywalking fine, but the task of making pedestrian-hostile suburbs like Marietta walkable has just begun.

Taking sides: Why planners must rethink the idea of neutrality

Part Six of a series on New Urbanism looks at the current economic realities facing America’s municipalities, and why more compact development strategies will be key to their long-term financial viability.

Seaside: The city of ideas

Following up on “Sprawlanta,” here's a video by First + Main Media that shows why Seaside, Florida, has been so influential over the last three decades. Many great ideas were incubated there.

Why retail design is important

Much of the future built environment will be determined by how commercial sites are developed.

A great Duany presentation

Andrés Duany led off Thursday morning at CNU21 by laying out a far-ranging view of what the near future needs to look like, and what we can do to get there.

'Triumph of suburbia' is a far-fetched story

Joel Kotkin is on a roll in the past few weeks, making the case that the revival of cities and decline of suburbs is a fraud — but his argument ignores the facts.

The Flamingo Park neighborhood's valiant struggle against Florida DOT

This started out as just another shameful story of a DOT ramming their over-engineered highway through a neighborhood, but the Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association just might be turning the tables.

Daybreak in Utah

It has been seven years since this urbanist last visited Daybreak. At the time it was a few hundred homes, a school, and the idea of New Urbanism was indeed new to Salt Lake City.

Growth near transit outpaces regions, 2000-2010

Households grew faster in “transit sheds,” areas within a half-mile of fixed-guideway transit service, than metro regions as a whole from 2000-2010 in four of the five major US transit regions.

Benefits of the grid

I have organized some of my main arguments from the Great American Grid debate at CNU into a simple list describing the benefits of the grid.

Petition could powerfully promote ‘complete streets’

US Department of Transportation (DOT) officials would consider a change in the way they classify thoroughfares — to the benefit of pedestrians, bicyclists, and transit users — but they need political support.

Putting the brakes on the Orlando-Casselberry flyover

“Flyovers are rarely constructed where there is economic wealth and development, and they tend to cause blight and have a chilling effect on economic development and property values,” says Richard Birdoff.

CNU 21: Insights and highlights from Salt Lake City

This 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.

Sustainable development and mortgage default

Multifamily properties with sustainability features have a significantly lower risk of mortgage default, according to a scholarly report available from Fannie Mae.

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News and Opinion Online

Growth near transit outpaces regions, 2000-2010

Better! Cities & Towns

Households grew faster in “transit sheds,” areas within a half-mile of fixed-guideway transit service, than metro regions as a whole from 2000-2010 in four of the five major US transit regions.

How LEED-ND standards reduce driving and associated emissions

Kaid Benfield, Better! Cities & Towns

Development located, designed, and built to the standards of LEED for Neighborhood Development dramatically lowers rates of driving compared to average projects in the same metropolitan region.

Homicide charges dropped for Georgia woman, cause celebre for pedestian activists

Robert Steuteville, Better! Cities & Towns

Raquel Nelson pays a jaywalking fine, but the task of making pedestrian-hostile suburbs like Marietta walkable has just begun.

Kigali, Lower East Side plans top Charter Awards

CNU, Better! Cities & Towns

Putting the brakes on the Orlando-Casselberry flyover

CNU, Better! Cities & Towns

Bringing walkable urban thoroughfares to Twinsburg, Ohio

CNU, Better! Cities & Towns

Shared space transforms British town

Better! Cities & Towns

When we reported on Poynton, England, in the January issue of Better! Cities & Towns, the video (click on headline to see it) was not publicly available. Now it has 90,000 views on You Tube, and tells a remarkable story about a £4 million ($6.4 million) street project that brought life back to a town that was formerly choked by traffic. The project removed a major traffic light and replaced it with two small "roundels." Pedestrian space more than doubled. Traffic lanes were drastically reduced (from three to one in each direction on the highway and two to one in each direction on the High Street). The aim is to create continuous, slow-speed traffic, and it seems to have worked. Pedestrians feel comfortable crossing at almost any point and bicycling activity has risen, according to the video. The two sides of the town are united. This could inform many kinds of street redesigns in the UK, US, and other parts of the world.

Dumb money, part 2

Charles Marohn, Better! Cities & Towns

Today we're going to add a couple more pieces of financial background before we move on and apply this to our current situation.

The Flamingo Park neighborhood's valiant struggle against Florida DOT

Steve Mouzon, Better! Cities & Towns

This started out as just another shameful story of a DOT ramming their over-engineered highway through a neighborhood, but the Flamingo Park Neighborhood Association just might be turning the tables.

CNU 21: Insights and highlights from Salt Lake City

Hazel Borys, Howard Blackson, Scott Doyon, BCT

This 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.

Benefits of the grid

Paul Knight, Better! Cities & Towns

I have organized some of my main arguments from the Great American Grid debate at CNU into a simple list describing the benefits of the grid.

Dumb money, part 1

Charles Marohn, Better! Cities & Towns

This week I want to write about one very technical finance subject and the implications for the housing market. Today I explain the "carry trade."

Federal court rules highway sponsors must first study impacts on transit, sprawl

Kaid Benfield, Better! Cities & Towns

The US District Court in Milwaukee has indicated that a major urban freeway connection cannot be enlarged without further study of the project's impacts on transit-dependent populations and on regional suburban sprawl.

The dark side of New York’s Airbnb regulations

Scott Beyer, Better! Cities & Towns

A New York City judge recently ruled to make the renting of apartments on Airbnb illegal, limiting the diversity in services that makes the city cheaper, more entrepreneurial, and worth visiting.

Better! Cities & Towns

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Postwar neighborhoods are key to suburban revitalization

The nation has a huge quantity of “Leave it to Beaver” neighborhoods from the postwar housing boom that are ripe for changes that will make them more walkable and appealing to new generations of residents.

Providence warms to ‘micro-lofts’

Rhode Island’s classic Arcade is to be reactivated with tiny housing units that are becoming popular in cities around the US.

Micro-lofts march across North America

Many cities have recently welcomed mini-apartments. Among them are these:

The ‘driving boom’ is over

What does that mean for urban places, transportation, and policy?

Our trillion dollar dirty little secret

It’s time to recognize that we can’t maintain the roads we have now, and that continuing down the path of highway expansion is both unaffordable and unnecessary.

Smart growth costs less, yields more revenues for cities and towns

The fiscal case for smart growth is gaining steam. New Urban News (now Better! Cities & Towns) reported on a groundbreaking study in Sarasota, Florida, in September of 2010 that showed enormous advantages in per-acre tax yields for mixed-use, downtown properties.

Miami Beach takes infrastructure beyond gray

When cities invest in infrastructure, it’s often the gray stuff like roads and bridges. Or it’s hidden away like water and sewer pipes. Not to say that infrastructure isn’t interesting and vital to a city’s success, but it’s hard to get excited about.

Minor league ballparks as downtown amenities

Regions Field in Birmingham is a recent example of baseball adding to the appeal of an urban place.

Designing Suburban Futures: New Models from Build a Better Burb

A book by by June Williamson
Island Press, 2013, 138 pp., $35 paperback, $70 hardcover

Market-responsive form-based codes

Form-based codes voluntarily adopted by developers show how this kind of land-use regulation can offer high market adaptability while assuring a better public realm.

Return of the greenfield TND?

The three projects — in Richardson and Fort Worth, Texas, and Clovis, New Mexico — profiled in the accompanying article are all new, greenfield developments on a neighborhood scale.

Why retail design is important

Much of the future built environment will be determined by how commercial sites are developed.

Downtown Wichita takes off

Master plan gives the city clear vision; Helps spur redevelopment at a torrid pace.

Where the market is heading

In the March 2013 issue we reviewed Arthur C. Nelson’s book, Reshaping Metropolitan America, but some of the numbers in the book are worth further consideration and analysis.