suburbs posts, articles, and infographics | Sustainable Cities Collective

Looking Forward: New Urbanism and the New World.

May 13, 2012 by Erin Chantry
with 198 views

Photos courtesy of Seaside Institute

This morning when I walked into the West Palm Beach convention center, I was very excited to be able to meet and brainstorm with the thinkers at the forefront of my profession, or at least the people who share in the same urban design theology. I had heard rumblings about the culture of the Congress of New Urbanism and certainly... [read more]

Can US communities learn from this European suburban retrofit?

February 22, 2012 by Kaid Benfield
with 348 views

In 2008, the substantially updated town center of Plessis-Robinson, a suburb of Paris, was named “the best urban neighborhood built in the last 25 years” by the European Architecture Foundation. A composite of six connected districts ranging in size from 5.6 to 59 acres, the revitalization comprises public buildings, retail... [read more]

Growing Cities Need Progressive Suburbs

February 14, 2012 by Bob Leonard
with 200 views

While growth of our society over the next decade is inevitable, it is important that we focus some attention on where our growing population will work and reside. In a recent Atlantic Cities article, Jed Kolko lays out where the US Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts job increases will occur throughout the country. While the article only... [read more]

Rust Belt Cities: to Avoid Demographic Loss, Protect & Strengthen the Core

January 5, 2012 by Kaid Benfield
with 297 views

For some time, I have been on record as believing that the problem with former industrial cities that have lost population isn’t just the changing economy. It’s also a failure to address suburban sprawl. A close look at population data reveals that, while the populations within central cities’ jurisdictional boundaries have declined substantially, their suburbs have actually grown. The result is that, if one defines “city” as the contiguous urbanized area within a metro region, regardless of political boundaries – the definition that matters to the economy and the environment – the shrinkage may vanish or be shown as far less than we think. [read more]

4 Principles for Re-Designing the Suburbs for the Future

December 22, 2011 by Rashiq Fataar
with 1,245 views

Suburbs will continue to exist. People will still want to live in them, and therefore we must re-design them. In America, our thinking has become rather binary when it comes to urban development; you either live in a Manhattan high-rise or a suburban house in Phoenix. The suburbs will have to densify in some way in order to be... [read more]

Greening Streets: The First Step Towards Fixing Suburbs

December 21, 2011 by Kaid Benfield
with 484 views

We’ve made such a mess of the suburbs we constructed in the last fifty or so years that one wonders whether they can ever be made into something more sustainable. Strip malls, traffic jams, cookie-cutter subdivisions, diminished nature, almost no sense of outdoor community. We all know the drill: there are nice places... [read more]

The Fringe Suburb Isn’t Dead- It’s Just Not Breathing

December 12, 2011 by Next American City
with 180 views

It seems like progressive urbanism is starting to sell papers. Two pieces on suburban sprawl, that ever creeping bogey man facing every urban planner under 50, have graced the front pages of the New York Times website over the past three days. I won’t talk about Louise Mozingo’s essay, an excellent piece on the reconceptualization of... [read more]

Race & Foreclosure in the Bay Area

December 2, 2011 by polis blog
with 114 views

The New York Times recently published a haunting piece about the black middle class in America. It isn't discussed enough that the sub-prime crisis not only brought the economy to its knees but also destroyed the public-sector job market upon which so many black middle-class lives have been built for half a century. Black households have... [read more]

Suburbs Are A Ponzi Scheme

October 6, 2011 by Kaid Benfield
with 1,985 views

It will not be news to anyone who is reading this that the United States remains in the midst of the deepest economic crisis in my lifetime. (I guess it turns out that you can’t start two major wars while cutting taxes and failing to regulate financial institutions, at least not without paying a steep price. ... [read more]

What's In A Name? "Dulles Town Center" Neither Town Nor Center

September 6, 2011 by Kaid Benfield
with 198 views

I begin today’s post with some context: over the weekend I went to a birthday party for a smart and fun 13-year-old in my extended family, with three other kids and three other grownups. It was at a fun restaurant and the company was swell. I had an excellent time, and it took my mind away from the terror of my... [read more]

Remembering Supply: The Story of Gotham and Pleasantville

July 12, 2011 by Peter Rudd
with 112 views

There is evidence that demand for city living is increasing dramatically in America. But some experts are claiming that this new evidence of demand is false because more Americans are moving to the suburbs than to cities. But what these experts fail to tell us is that suburbs are making housing and amenities available while... [read more]

Friday 5: Articles for Urbanists

July 8, 2011 by Yuri Artibise
with 108 views

Here’s my weekly selection of news and views for urbanists: Playing Games with the Urban Landscape: In parts of the world, urban environments are being transformed into play-scapes, sites for new creative expression, exercise, or games. (The Dirt) How the Great Reset Has Already Changed America: In the wake of the recession... [read more]