Planning Without Plans

In everyday life, people usually say “I need a plan” if something has gone wrong. Plans should play a similar role in cities.

Our Self-Imposed Scarcity of Nice Places

Why is it that when a place is [pick one: walkable, bikeable, beautiful, lovable, inviting, human-scale], it so often gets coded as being “gentrified” or “upscale”?

Herriges, Urban Design, Walkability, Top StoryDaniel HerrigesNovember 3, 2021urbanism, urban design, walkability, gentrification, Gentrification

Planning Is a Bigger Job Than Planning Can Do

Planning must become a job that planners can actually do in a 40-hour work week. This will require a different approach to planning, altogether.

Movie Set Urbanism: Revisited

What do we find when we look behind the "New Urbanist" façade of this master-planned development?

Engineers Should Not Design Streets: A Programmer's Take

Software engineers don’t design user interface, so why do we let civil engineers design streets?

Cities Are for Older People, Too

Aging in American culture comes with the association of loneliness, dependence, and isolation. If cites were designed differently, this wouldn’t have to be the case.

Public Space, Urban Design, Top Story, OwensTiffany Owens ReedSeptember 13, 2021aging, design, urban design, cities

Bad Benches (and Other Park Problems)

Some misguided attempts to enhance the local park in Brainerd, MN, has actually made it a worse place to be.

Delight per Acre

The same design principles behind Japanese gardens can make the building of resilient and financially strong places into a joy, rather than a burden.

Miyazaki's Urbanism

Globally beloved animator Hayao Miyazaki has a secret he’s been hiding in plain sight for years: he’s one of the best urban designers and thinkers of our time.

Urban Design, Top StoryMatthew RobareJuly 14, 2021urbanism, urban design, human scale

Leaving Value on the Table

Why do large-scale developers bother making cool mockups for their spaces, only to end up with a bland end product?

Herriges, Public Space, Urban Design, Top StoryDaniel HerrigesApril 14, 2021urban design, granularity, public space

College Campuses Are Designed at Human-Scale. Our Cities Can Be Too.

Many college campuses are designed to be walkable and human-scaled. But living in a great neighborhood like that doesn’t have to end at graduation.

Urban Design, Walkability, Top StoryCollin SloweyJanuary 6, 2021college, urban design, walkability, auto-oriented

Why My Older, Smaller Library Was Better

The new library was larger and offered more books and services. The reason it was so hard to connect with has a lot to say about the way we design our cities.

Urban Design, Horbovetz, Top StoryArian HorbovetzJanuary 5, 2021libraries, New York, urban design

For Teens, No Room in the Pandemic City

Cities that offered few options for teenagers before the pandemic have even fewer options today.

Podcast, Coronavirus, Urban Design, Top StoryStrong TownsDecember 9, 2020coronavirus, urban design

Why Do Suburban Retrofit Projects So Often Get All the Details Wrong?

We get the density and the height, but not much action. Some of the form, none of the function.

Urban Design, Herriges, Housing, Top StoryDaniel HerrigesNovember 12, 2020urban design, suburban retrofit, Florida, New Urbanism, aesthetics

The Wisdom in Fences

Good fences—good edges of all kinds—make for good neighbors. They can also boost the economic vitality of our downtowns.

Architecture, Urban Design, Top StoryJeff SzyperskiOctober 29, 2020cognitive architecture, architecture, urban design

"We Can't Micromanage Great Urban Design Into Existence."

Urbanists may debate the merits of Top-Down Beautiful urbanism vs. Top-Down Pragmatic urbanism. But there’s a third, better way — one that emanates from the bottom up.

Upzoned, Top Story, Urban Design, PodcastStrong TownsOctober 21, 2020urban design, Upzoned, urbanism

Designing Our Cities for Joy

For some, the pandemic is stripping away distractions and connecting them with the simple joys of our ancestors. For others, it’s stripping away their lives and livelihood. We need to convert the lessons of the pandemic into action.

Coronavirus, Community, Urban Design, Top StoryRachel QuednauJuly 28, 2020Coronavirus, Boston, urban design

Down to Earth: It's Time to Re-examine the Hype around Skyscrapers

A skyline full of skyscrapers makes for a nice postcard…but do skyscrapers actually make our cities stronger?

Urban Design, Top Story, Upzoned, PodcastStrong TownsJuly 22, 2020skyscrapers, Upzoned, urban design

Is This Development "Out of Scale"?

It’s an article of faith among many that big and tall buildings don’t belong around small and short buildings. But does this idea actually stand up to scrutiny?