Urban Planning posts, articles, and infographics

Homes Struggle With Lighting Efficiency

May 23, 2012 by Tyler Caine
with 32 views

When it comes to homes, lighting has become a luxury of the modern age. Architects have steadily grown to gorge themselves on light fixtures. Without a doubt, nice lighting can certainly look cool, but it is easy to go overboard. Light a circulation path here, throw in some accents there, before we know it we end up with over 62 lights... [read more]

Your Garden Will Spring Higher If You Keep It Local

May 23, 2012 by Mark LeChevallier
with 19 views

Konstantin Sutyagin/Shutterstock

Indigenous plants support local ecosystems, and by introducing foreign plants to your backyard-garden-ecosystem, you’re interrupting the natural flow. Each region of this country has a specific style, its own pace, tone, foods, views, and people. The type of vegetation also varies by region, but we don’t often think about the flowers or trees that are native to various regions. Can you even name your state flower? [read more]

Sustainability and Affordable Housing: Maybe Occupy Is Onto Something

May 23, 2012 by Audrey Henderson
with 59 views

Occupy has been speaking out against the ongoing housing and foreclosure crisis. In conjunction with this cause, and as an adjustment to forcible removal from public spaces by law enforcement, the movement has evolved to Occupying abandoned properties and homes of families facing foreclosure as an act of civil disobedience. This post considers what would be involved in Occupying vacant and abandoned buildings – legally – as affordable housing for homeless families and individuals or for households caught up in the housing crisis. [read more]

Street Art for Redevelopment in Miami

May 22, 2012 by polis blog
with 78 views

A walk through Wynwood, a neighborhood north of downtown Miami, brings an encounter with two-dimensional fangy creatures that transform the physical and social landscape of this once-industrial zone into a spray-painted cultural destination.Wynwood has become the epicenter of Miami’s artistic rebirth. Over the past decade, Art Basel... [read more]

Big and small questions about food

May 22, 2012 by Marc Gunther
with 85 views

I’ve just returned from the Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Cooking for Solutions conference feeling optimistic about the potential to change the way we grow food, cook and eat. Maybe it’s the wine, the seafood, and the wonderful fruits and vegetables (fried artichokes!) from nearby California farms, but I don’t think so. More likely it’s... [read more]

Integrating Transportation and Culture in Nice

May 22, 2012 by Mark K Ames
with 234 views

I was recently lucky enough to spend some time in Nice, on the Cote D'Azur in the South of France, and was blown away by the way in which this punchy medium-sized city had come on in leaps and bounds in terms of improving its urban realm. I was last there some 7 years ago when traffic choked the upper half of the city whilst... [read more]

Going Multi-Modal in the “Texas of the North”

May 22, 2012 by Project for Public Spaces
with 56 views

Even in Red Deer's downtown area, pedestrians play second fiddle to automotive traffic / Photo: Gary TothRed Deer, Alberta, is a small city about halfway between Calgary and Edmonton. Once a sleepy agricultural outpost of that provided a convenient stopover for travelers moving between the territory’s two larger cities, Red Deer has... [read more]

Microcities: The Rise of the Mini Home and the Walkable Neighbourhood

May 21, 2012 by This Big City
with 526 views

I’ve written before about how much I enjoy living in a small home in a walkable neighbourhood. Apparently I am not the only one. Real estate trends, urban planning theorists, and architects in North America are coming to the realization that more and more young people – Generation Y – and even their soon-to-be-empty nest parents, want a smaller home. [read more]

CNU20: Final Reflections.

May 21, 2012 by Erin Chantry
with 24 views

r.nagy/Shutterstock

It’s been one week since I started out on my first CNU journey, and overall it was a wonderful one. I am still wallowing through all my reflections on my week in West Palm Beach and have been able to express many of them through posts I’ve written. I have believed in the movement and adhered to the CNU Charter in my own way since I... [read more]

‘Decision Trees’ Guide Vacant Land To Renewables

May 20, 2012 by Nino Marchetti
with 107 views

Image via Shutterstock

There’s no telling how much land sits vacant in America. Some of this land is just unused, while other plots, called brownfields, have been contaminated by industrial waste, and deemed unfit for use. There have been no comprehensive studies to tally it all, but there are some clues that it’s a big number. A 2000 study of 70 major... [read more]

New housing forecast mostly good for walkable communities

May 18, 2012 by Kaid Benfield
with 57 views

The housing price recovery has begun, says a new report from The Demand Institute, a think tank recently launched by Nielson and The Conference Board to track consumer demand. Among the findings that are promising for more sustainable development patterns, the strongest segment of the market “comprises populous urban or semi... [read more]

Blink and You Will Miss These Urban Memes

May 17, 2012 by The Dirt ASLA
with 283 views

Street art can be elegant, enigmatic, or just plain goofy. In a new addition to our series of posts on how the built environment can be transformed through new forms of “rebel” or street sports, games, and art work, here are a few new “memes” worth mulling over. Perhaps the urban form of flash-in-the pan Internet... [read more]