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
May 2, 2018 | 1:46 pm
Affordable Housing Finance: Show me the money
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 Jeff Staudinger, former Community Development Director for the City of Asheville and currently a consultant in affordable housing finance. He’ll be a panelist in the afternoon session, “New Housing Finance (Mostly) Without the Feds,” at 4 p.m.
April 25, 2018 | 4:04 pm
New Housing Finance (Mostly) Without the Feds
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 Ben Schulman, communications director of the crowdsourcing platform Small Change. He’ll be a panelist in the afternoon session, “New Housing Finance (Mostly) Without the Feds,” at 4 p.m.
April 18, 2018 | 1:30 pm
Affordability in Context: Part II
In the weeks before the Congress for the New Urbanism conference in Savannah, Georgia, 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 Part II of a context-setting interview with Scott Bernstein, a founder of the Center for Neighborhood Technology and a former CNU board member. Part I is here.
April 12, 2018 | 4:33 pm
Community Affordability in Context: It’s not just about the house
Next month, May 15-19, when the Congress for the Urbanism holds its conference in Savannah, one day’s focus will be on “Affordability: The Intersection of Everything.” Between now and the beginning of the conference, we’ll present a series of Q&As with participants in that day’s discussion. Leading off is Scott Bernstein, a founder of the Center for Neighborhood Technology and a four-decade leader in analyses of the interdependent components of communities’ health. We’ll present the conversation in two parts, beginning with this context setter.
January 10, 2018 | 1:50 pm
Resolved for 2018: Fewer delusions, more reality-based planning
Okay, so we’re shaking off the shock therapy of 2017 and ready to move on, right?
Let’s start with admitting some of the stuff a lot of us got wrong about challenges and solutions in municipal and regional planning. Such as: Our misplaced overconfidence in the stability of basic institutions, especially those requiring democratic processes.
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
September 20, 2017 | 1:44 pm
When Coffee Came to London (Not a Starbuck’s story)
Around 1650, coffee came to London. The refreshing and slightly habit forming beverage was a big hit. A new kind of non-alcoholic public house — the coffee house — was quickly invented.
London was a walking city, only the wealthy and businesses had personal transportation. And the weather was famously chancey. So a smart entrepreneur came up with a way of scouting locations.
August 2, 2016 | 7:44 pm
Summer Fun: Pokémon GO and Minecraft for young urbanists
“Mom, I need to walk 10k today,” coming from my 11-year old this morning almost gave me whiplash, as I turned to look at him to ensure an alien wasn’t inhabiting his body. In fact, there was one, if you view Pokémon as other-worldly. The playful new video game, Pokémon GO, is distracting kids and grown-ups alike with an augmented reality (AR) that requires walking with friends, visiting places of cultural and economic significance, and “capturing” Pokémon as they appear on the sidewalk by “hitting” them with virtual balls. By level five of the game, you’re able to join a team and visit local virtual “gyms” to practice or spar. The walking 10k comment was about hatching Pokémon eggs, each of which require walking either two, five, or ten kilometers.
Continue Reading
March 29, 2016 | 12:01 am
Benchmarks: Places on the move measure up
As spring tempts us to pick up the pace of our outdoor activities, it’s clear that not all places have equal footing. Those well-positioned to draw us out into health-boosting active transportation are enjoying all sorts of benefits. City planners across North America are trying hard to even the playing field. The 2016 Benchmarking Report for Bicycling and Walking in the United States came out earlier this month, and if you haven’t taken the time to read it yet, here are some of the important highlights in this biennial review published by the Alliance for Biking & Walking.
