Best of 2019: Two Photos Reveal Why the Key to Slowing Traffic is Street Design, Not Speed Limits

Two simple photos show the difference between a street simply designated 20 miles per hour, and one actually designed to be safe. We can't regulate our way to safety.

Best of 2019: How a Local Bookstore Can Make Your Town Richer—In More Than One Way

Can a humble corner bookstore make your city wealthier and more resilient? These small businesses have surprising staying power—and in many ways are an indicator species of a strong neighborhood.

Best of 2019: California's Housing Crisis

Affordable housing shortages in California (and other states) are worsened by a go-big-or-go-home model of development: we throw up so many barriers in the face of incremental change that the only building projects that remain viable are huge, complicated ones with many possible points of failure.

Best of 2019: Why Urban Design Should Come From the Bottom Up (Part 1)

Professional planners are trained to yearn for tighter urban design controls, as if cities without comprehensive, top-down planning would devolve into chaos and disorder. In reality, cities evolve according to mechanisms that allow us to gradually discover optimal urban design across time.

Best of 2018: What’s Up with All Those Empty Commercial Storefronts in New Mixed-Use Developments?

Why all these new storefronts are sitting vacant.

Small Scale Developers, Quednau, Top Story, Best of BlogRachel QuednauDecember 14, 2018local business, small business, Best of 2018

Best of 2018: The More We Grow, the Poorer We Become

Local governments can’t take on more and more promises without generating enough wealth to meet those obligations—not without a reckoning. We need a radical revolution in how we plan, manage, and inhabit our cities, counties, and neighborhoods. We need a Strong Towns approach.

Best of 2018: The Psychology of Decline

For a struggling city, negative perceptions from with the community can send it into a spiral of decline. It takes a major shift in perspective to get the city back on track.

Akron, Quednau, Top Story, Best of BlogRachel QuednauDecember 13, 2018revitalization, page highlight, Best of 2018

Best of 2018: What Does Incrementalism Actually Mean?

Incremental approaches are often cheaper, faster, or have less risk than sudden approaches. Let’s explore different types of incrementalism.

Andrew Price, Best of BlogAndrew PriceDecember 12, 2018incrementalism, incremental development, incremental growth, Best of 2018

Best of 2018: The Real Reason Your Local Mall is Failing

The closing of the mall’s anchor store exposes how fragile the community’s business model is, providing an opening to shift approach.

Marohn, Growth Ponzi Scheme, Top Story, Best of BlogCharles MarohnDecember 12, 2018shopping malls, big box stores, value per acre, Best of 2018

Best of 2018: Who Can Afford to Invest in a Poor Neighborhood?

What does it take to be a small-scale developer in a struggling part of town? To put your money where your mouth is and participate in incremental neighborhood revitalization? One of our staffers knows firsthand.

WIlson, Small Scale Developers, #StrongCitizens, Top Story, Best of BlogKea WilsonDecember 11, 2018incremental development, Best of 2018

Best of 2018: Automated Vehicles Will Make Our Streets Worse

Automated vehicle technology will do nothing to make our streets better places to be.

Best of 2018: Why Are Developers Only Building Luxury Housing?

"Developers in my city are only building luxury housing. They're not building anything that ordinary people can afford." If you’ve said this lately, or heard someone else say it, here are five possible reasons why.

Best of 2018: Why We Need to Talk About Car Aggression

As a cycling advocate, I avoid talking about the times when riding a bike in the city is scary, because I don’t want to deter would-be new riders from giving it a try. There’s only one problem with pretending I’m never afraid: it isn’t true.

Byron, #SlowtheCars, Top Story, Best of BlogAubrey ByronDecember 7, 2018bicycling, pedestrian safety, speed, Best of 2018

Best of 2018: Winning is the Absence of Losing

The most important thing for a local government is to avoid ruin.

Marohn, Strategies, Top Story, Best of BlogCharles MarohnDecember 7, 2018antifragile, Risk, #OrderlyButDumb, Best of 2018

Best of 2018: Gentrification and Cataclysmic Money

Gentrification and concentrated poverty are two sides of the same coin. We’ve engineered our cities so that neighborhoods get either too much investment or too little: the trickle or the fire hose.

Herriges, Housing, Top Story, Best of BlogDaniel HerrigesDecember 6, 2018Best of 2018

Best of 2018: Most Public Engagement is Worthless

It is the experiences of real people that should guide our planning efforts. Their actions are the data we should be collecting, not their stated preferences.

Best of 2018: Stop Playing Public Hearing Bingo

Here are a few ideas to make you a more effective—and interesting—public hearing participant.

Best of 2018: Why Walkable Streets are More Economically Productive

3 dollars and cents arguments that definitively prove the need for people-oriented, walk-friendly places.

Poor Neighborhoods Make the Best Investments

We can make low risk, high returning investments in our cities while improving the quality of life for people, particularly those who are not benefiting from the current approach.

Marohn, Best of BlogCharles MarohnDecember 15, 2017