Whether we’re talking equity, affordability, jobs, health, or a list of other pressing topics, every community strives for more effective outcomes from policies to address a broad range of competing demands. The fact that the demands – and the strategies to address them – are competing for time and resources is its own problem, especially in an era of diminishing trust in cities’ and towns’ capacities to deliver on the collective local vision.
October 1, 2019 | 5:03 pm
Code Score: A New Aid for aligning policy and vision with outcomes
November 16, 2017 | 1:34 pm
Places that Pay: Benefits of placemaking v2
“Reconciliation is making peace with reality, our ideals, and the gap in between,” via Her Honour, Janice C. Filmon, Lieutenant Governor of Manitoba. Much of our work here at PlaceMakers is about redirecting the trajectory of where we are headed with the targets needed to ensure the wellness of our environment, equity, and economy, so that stopgap measures are kept to a minimum. The studies that quantify how the form of our cities, towns, villages, and hamlets effects this wellness is essential to building the political will to make change. Listed below are the 65 key works I’m most likely to quote, to make the case for developing the city and town planning tools we need to make a difference for the resilience of people, planet and profit. Continue Reading
October 11, 2017 | 12:37 am
Civic Space: Creating Community
Public space, or as many urbanists refer to it, civic space, sets the stage for community building. The study of how we use public space has been refined by Jan Gehl over the last thirty years, since the publication of his Life Between Buildings in 1987. A couple of weeks ago, Gehl released his Public Life Data Protocol, in an attempt to establish a standard method for the global collection of data on how we inhabit our civic spaces. And help the rest of us become better urban observers. Continue Reading
June 20, 2017 | 2:23 pm
Livability, Division, Exclusion and Other Naughty Words
This is what we’ve come to: An escalation in urban property values and cost of living so extreme in some quarters that there are now those who, with a straight face, argue against efforts to improve neighborhoods. Don’t bring those improvements goes the often implied but less frequently articulated point of view, as improvement increases quality of life, quality of life increases desirability, desirability increases demand, and demand brings newcomers and drives up cost.
That’s how the process goes, for sure. You’ll get no argument from me in that regard. But surely we’re capable of something better than leave suffering areas suffering so they can stay off the radar.
April 4, 2017 | 2:49 pm
Lessons From Savannah
Savannah, Georgia is arguably one of, if not the most, beautiful cities in the United States. Although I lived there for a while 25 years ago, on a recent visit I was struck by the many placemaking lessons we can learn from this lovely city. In anticipation of the 2018 CNU Congress in the city, I started taking some notes of subjects I want to explore next year.
The Power of a Plan
Much has been written on the Oglethorpe Plan of Savannah, and architects and planners continue to be enlightened by the framework of public space as the plan’s first priority. The dedication of four civic parcels – trust lots – on each square, assured each neighborhood would be served by educational and religious institutions. (Reiter, B., 2016, Savannah City Plan) Continue Reading
January 27, 2015 | 11:31 am
SimCity Adopts a Form-Based Code?
No, but I do wish they would. Over the holidays, my ten-year-old and I started playing SimCity. As the many other city planners who’ve played the game have observed, it’s a great way to explore basic city building concepts with people who don’t think about it too often. Now as I gripe about some of the things that a form-based code would fix, my kid commiserates, and suggests an open letter to SimCity.
December 24, 2012 | 1:27 pm
Gathering Places: Providers of comfort and joy
To wish you the happiest of holidays, I’d like to share some recent thoughts about the importance of gathering places both in the public and private realm, particularly as it relates to children, solace, and song. In celebration of the season, those places — when well planned and cultivated — become particularly poignant.
Take private porches, for example. My son’s grades two and three Caroling Club trudged happily through a couple feet of snow this week, in our traditional neighborhood. Their goal? Just to sing and share some joy — no funds were raised, although the last house did produce hot coco and doughnut holes.
July 26, 2012 | 2:44 am
Collaborative Placemaking Maps
The other day on an urbanism listserv, someone asked for parameters to qualify a new development as a walkable, mixed-used, livable place. While measures like CNT’s H+T Index, Walkscore, and IMI’s Walkability Index go a long way toward measuring, there isn’t a single source that awards the title of Livable New Place.
