2016 Groves Award Winner

We’d like to help celebrate this year’s Groves Award Winner! Andy Blake, City Manager for the City of Ranson, West Virginia, will receive the 2016 Groves Award, given annually by the Congress for the New Urbanism and the Transect Codes Council to recognize outstanding leadership and vision in the promotion of Transect-based planning.

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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,…

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The Human Scale

This weekend, I again watched The Human Scale, a film from 2013, and got more stoked to meet Jan Gehl at the 23rd Congress for the New Urbanism (#CNU23) in Dallas in April. Jan will bring the Congress an update on his human scale work since the film was complete, but the ideas are timeless.…

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Urbanists Soak Up Buffalo: PlaceMakers empty their notebooks

The 22nd annual gathering of the CNU wrapped up Saturday night, June 7, in Buffalo. We’re looking forward to the recordings at cnu.org over the next few weeks to fill the inevitable gaps, since the competing sessions and hallway conversations presented the usual embarrassment of riches. Rather than go for a tidy narrative, let’s just…

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CNU21: Insights and Highlights from Salt Lake City

Git ‘Er Done | Hazel Borys 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. Looks like they might be starting to pay off. Still, we have plenty of hard work ahead to remove both legal and financial hurdles.

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Meet Your ‘Makers: Where we’ll be at CNU 21 Salt Lake City

It’s that time of year again, fellow urbanists. The Congress for the New Urbanism, perhaps the country’s most comprehensive gathering of city planners, city builders and city lovers. This year, the 21st, is themed Living Community which, according to organizers, “balances the demands of physical, social, economic, and environmental values by connecting people to place.…

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This Just In from CNU20: World not yet saved

The Congress for the New Urbanism’s annual convergence of giganto ideas and fine-grained pragmatism wrapped Saturday night with a party in a bar. The four days in West Palm Beach, Florida, marked the 20th anniversary of such gatherings, most of which also involved spill-over debates in venues with liquor licenses. As usual, the CNU20 agenda…

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CU@CNU?

PlaceShakers gets put on ice this week as we, together with most of the urbanists we know, head to West Palm Beach, Florida, for CNU 20: The New World, this year’s installment of the annual Congress for the New Urbanism. Will you be there? As summarized by the CNU, “The New World confronts the challenges…

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‘Show Me the Money!’ New bumper sticker for the New Normal?

There hasn’t been a New Urbanist Council gathering for a while. Which is why a lot of pent-up anxiety — and hope — found release in Council sessions in Montgomery, Alabama, October 14-16. These regionally organized Councils are intended to grapple with topics that should be on the table for annual Congress for the New…

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Now What? CNU 17 Addresses the New Era Economy

The irony is unavoidable. Interest in Smart Growth and New Urbanist topics has never been higher. Check out this May 2 column in the Washington Post; or David Brooks’ opinion piece in the New York Times from May 4. Yet the economic downturn has sucked the energy out of innovative projects in both private and public sectors.…

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