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May 13, 2020 | 1:53 pm

Public Participation, Part I: Let’s Fix What’s Not Working

This is Part I of a two-parter on this topic. The conversation is the third in our series addressing planning challenges in an era likely to be reshaped by the COVID-19 pandemic. The two previous topics can be found here and here.

Jennifer Hurley is President & CEO of Hurley-Franks & Associates, a planning consultancy firm, and a PhD candidate in Human and Organizational Development at Fielding Graduate University. She’s a current or past board member of a number of professional organizations, including The Congress for the New Urbanism, the National Charrette Institute, and the Form-Based Codes Steering Committee.

Category Public Engagement, Public Policy, Q&A1 CommentTags Ben Brown, community engagement, COVID-19, Jennifer Hurley

May 11, 2018 | 10:53 am

Tools to Stop Coming Up Short on Affordable Housing

In the weeks before the Congress for the New Urbanism conference in Savannah, GA, May 15-19, we’re presenting interviews with experts contributing to a day-long exploration of “Affordability: The Intersection of Everything.” A three-hour morning forum on Thursday, May 17, kicks off the discussion, followed by two break-out sessions that afternoon. Below is an interview with Ahmad Abu-Khalaf, research analyst with Enterprise Community Partners. He’ll be on the morning kick-off panel.

Category Community Development, Financing, Planning and Design, Public Policy, Q&ALeave a CommentTags affordable housing, Ahmad Abu-Khalaf, Ben Brown, CNU 26

March 9, 2015 | 12:01 am

Suburban Retrofits: A deep dive

A couple weeks ago, Ellen Dunham-Jones produced a Placemaking@Work webinar that she described as a deep dive into the suburban retrofit case studies, with an hour-long lecture in preparation for the 23rd Congress for the New Urbanism in Dallas, April 29 through May 2. This session is free until the beginning of the CNU here, but in the mean time, I had a few follow-up questions that she kindly answered for me.

Category Community Development, Development, Planning and Design, Q&A5 CommentsTags CNU 23, congress for the new urbanism, Ellen Dunham-Jones, Hazel Borys, Sprawl Repair, suburban retrofit

October 28, 2014 | 12:05 am

An Interview with Kaid Benfield, Newly-Announced ‘Senior Counsel’ for PlaceMakers

Kaid Benfield, newly-announced ‘Senior Counsel’ for PlaceMakers.

Many of you know — or know of — Kaid Benfield, who’s led smart growth and sustainability initiatives at the Natural Resources Defense Council for two decades. Kaid is stepping down from his NRDC post. And we’re delighted to announce that he’ll become Senior Counsel for Environmental Strategies for PlaceMakers, effective the first of January.

See our press release detailing the announcement here.

Category News, Q&A2 CommentsTags Kaid Benfield

January 13, 2014 | 12:01 am

Q&A: Eric Brooks provides the New Urban lowdown on boutique hotels

Today, we borrow a time-tested technique to add another dimension to our community development explorations: the Q&A. Moving forward, we’ll periodically bug an expert we know to shed some light on topics our clients and colleagues care about.

As David Brooks suggested in a recent snarky opinion piece, boutique hotels are all the rage. Just about every downtown development group wants one to complete a perfect neighborhood. So we turn to Eric Brooks, a long-time pro in hotel development, to help us understand the niche. (Eric’s bio is at the bottom of the blog post, along with his contact info.)