Sprawl Repair from Phoenix to Miami

What’s form got to do with it?

Sprawl remains the prevailing growth pattern across the United States, even though experts in planning, economics and environmental issues have long denounced it as wasteful, inefficient, and unsustainable. Sprawl is a principal cause of lost open space and natural habitat as well as increases in air and water pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, infrastructure costs, and obesity. It also plays a primary role in the housing meltdown plaguing the nation. But is it possible to repair sprawling suburbs and create more livable, robust, and eco-sensitive communities where they do not now exist?

Galina Tachieva has been a leader in the movement to answer that question, as the primary author of the Sprawl Repair Manual and SmartCode Module. If you want a tutorial on this toolbox of creative approaches, check out her earlier webinar on the subject. This time around, she’ll be sharing stories from the trenches, from Phoenix to Miami. Letting us know what’s form got to do with it.

Galina is an expert on sustainable planning, urban redevelopment, sprawl repair, and form-based codes. As a partner and Director of Town Planning at Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company (DPZ), Galina directs and manages the design and implementation of projects in the US and around the world. DPZ, a leader in the New Urbanism, the movement to end sprawl and urban disinvestment, has completed designs for more than 300 new towns, regional plans, and community revitalization projects on five continents. Galina is the author of the Sprawl Repair Manual, an award-winning publication, which focuses on the incremental retrofit of auto-centric suburban places into complete, vibrant communities through focused interventions.