Posts Tagged ‘Scott Doyon’
Placemaking Gets Freaky
I’m a freak magnet. For reasons unknown, the more, err, colorful characters of the public realm seem to find my personal space especially attractive. If I go to a midday matinée and another patron — let’s say an agitated mumbler in a trench coat with shoes crudely fashioned out of car wash sponges — joins…
Read More“People Habitat”: Kaid Benfield takes Smart Growth to a higher level
For several weeks now I’ve intended to write up my thoughts on “People Habitat,” the recently-released book from NRDC smart growth sensei — and friend — Kaid Benfield. Not that it’s anything he needs, mind you. A quick look at his reviews over on Amazon reveals a diverse collection of accolades, consistent only in their…
Read MoreCNU 22 Buffalo: Gearing up for another Stern talkin’ to
Urban circles echoed with the sound of jaws collectively hitting the floor recently, as the Congress for the New Urbanism made the unexpected announcement that famed architect Robert A.M. Stern would be dropping by CNU 22 in Buffalo to make the case for how the lessons of garden suburbs — which he explores in his…
Read MoreStayin’ Alive: The life and death prospects of community ties
“We had better get together on this or we’re going to die.” People talk a lot about community these days. How we’ve lost whatever sense of it we might have once had. How we don’t really know each other much anymore. How we yearn for more intimacy, with connection that transcends the typically weak ties…
Read More13 Ways to Kill Your Community
Not so long ago, fellow urban scribe and recently elected mayor of Concrete, Washington, Jason Miller, recommended the book, “13 Ways to Kill Your Community.” The timing was fortuitous. For a while, in an ongoing series of internal conversations, I’d been wrestling with a fundamental question of human nature: Are people basically good, with periodic…
Read MoreResilience: It’s who ya know.
If there’s one thing the 20th century gave us, it’s the luxury of not needing each other. It so defines our culture that it’s physically embodied in our sprawling, disconnected landscapes. That alone begets a classic, chicken-n-egg question: Did the leisurely lure of the suburbs kill our sense of community? Were our social ties unwittingly…
Read MoreSustainability: What’s in a word?
The places we inhabit are rarely if ever arbitrary. They’re the products of intention. Personal. Economic. Environmental. Religious. We choose for ourselves, individually and collectively, the kind of places we want and — through leadership, policy, investment, advocacy, action and, at times, inaction — those places begin to take form. It’s a complicated dance of…
Read MoreGoing Green: What is it you really want?
Last week I spent some time in the mountains of southern Virginia visiting my folks. That’s something I not only enjoy but find productive as well, as it affords me opportunity to further explain exactly what it is I do for a living. For some reason, “telling the story of community placemaking” still leaves them…
Read MoreZoning Our Way to HOA Insanity
I’m big on local. Not because I hate Walmart and 3,000 mile Caesar salads but because, as I see it, communities built on human-scaled, interdependent systems are better suited to taking on the challenges and opportunities presented by time. That’s why, when it comes to the decisions that most directly impact day-to-day quality of life,…
Read MoreCNU21: 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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