Stop Shoehorning Suburbia into Walkable Places

It’s pretty easy to destroy a walkable place. We’ve been doing it for so long.

Kobos, Neighborhood Design, Neighborhoods First, WalkabilitySarah KobosMay 30, 2017walkability, traditional development pattern, Traditional Main Street, page highlight

Patterns of Home, Importance of Homeyness

You cannot build a place of enduring value that isn't homey, that isn't loved.

Field Notes, Top Story, Urban Design, Walkability, HousingGracen JohnsonAugust 22, 2016traditional development pattern, placemaking, antifragile, Parks, greenspace, home

Let's Infill A Traditional Neighborhood (And Make A Profit)

I ran the numbers and made a plan for building a traditional urban neighborhood. It turns out there's big profit to be made in this model.

Andrew Price, Top Story, Neighborhood Design, Urban DesignAndrew PriceAugust 9, 2016New York, New Jersey, traditional development pattern

One key strategy to make New York more affordable

These places all have many of the physical elements needed for success, quite frankly, because they were built for it originally. What they need most is people; people that care about the place and have the energy to make it better.

Zoning, Walkability, Urban Design, Member Post, Housing, Top EvergreenKevin KlinkenbergAugust 4, 2016traditional development pattern, New York, San Francisco, Chicago, Portland OR, Maine, Millennials, zoning

Letting go of Suburbia

Suburbia cannot and will not be retrofitted to a substantially different model of development. But a small portion may be salvageable.

Big Box Stores, Member Post, Top Story, Top EvergreenNathan LewisJuly 20, 2016suburbs, suburban retrofit, traditional development pattern, development, shopping malls, page highlight, suburban experiment, housing

The sprawl conversation

Chuck Marohn responds to critiques of his essay, Sprawl is not the Problem.

Growth Ponzi Scheme, Marohn, #ChaoticButSmartCharles MarohnApril 20, 2016sprawl, suburban experiment, traditional development pattern, suburbs, #OrderlyButDumb, auto-oriented

Sprawl is Not the Problem

I encourage you all to stop using the word sprawl. It doesn't accurately describe the problem, it prevents us from getting to real responses and it unnecessarily divides the national dialog in ways that are unhelpful.

Marohn, Growth Ponzi Scheme, Urban DesignCharles MarohnApril 18, 2016sprawl, traditional development pattern, suburban experiment, New York, Smart Growth

Romancing the Stone Age

America's pre-Depression development pattern relied on exploitation of workers, poor living conditions and exclusion of women and minorities from power in order to function. How is the Strong Towns approach, which advocates for traditional development patterns, different?

Marohn, Growth Ponzi Scheme, Top StoryCharles MarohnFebruary 15, 2016suburban experiment, traditional development pattern, illusion of wealth

Best of Blog: The Foolproof City

Working from the top down, with efficiency as our greatest value, we can bring about great change in a short time with limited resources. What we give up with that approach is resiliency.

Best of Blog, Greatest Hits, #DotheMathCharles MarohnDecember 20, 2013Jane Jacobs, Nassim Taleb, urban planning, traditional development pattern, Joe Minicozzi, too big to fail

The Cost of Auto Orientation

We've reconfigured our public spaces to accommodate the automobile. Today we need the humility to acknowledge that our ancestors -- who built in the traditional style -- may have known what they were doing.