This street scene is rich with arcades, outdoor seating and cigars. Name the city and street, por favor.
Parts 1 and 2 of this series dealt with some analysis of public space. What is a well-designed park, square or plaza? What makes some work and others not as much? Why is this even important?
The obvious next question is – what can be done about it? Knowing what we [...]
Though tempted, I won’t write a soliloquy today on the many virtues of street trees. Others have done so better than I, including Allan Jacobs, who wrote in the book Great Streets, “Given a limited budget, the most effective expenditure of funds to improve a street would probably be on trees.”
Some of my colleagues [...]
Steve Mouzon has a very well-done piece this week about “Walk Appeal” – and a thorough critique/evaluation of the 5 minute walk radius over at The Original Green.
Steve’s piece is important because it dissects one of the dogmas of planning and the New Urbanism, and points us towards a better understanding of [...]
EXT: A NEIGHBORHOOD CORNER STORE
A lively setting: people walking, talking. Store owners chat with customers on the sidewalk.
EXT: A NEIGHBORHOOD CORNER STORE
20 years later, same location. A lonely street: buildings boarded up or turned into low-rent uses. Few people seen walking around. Generally dismal.
It’s a common theme or scene in so [...]
While the country staggers towards economic stability, the design professions are feeling their worst economic times since the Great Depression. Depending on the region of the country, the unemployment and underemployment rate for design professionals is anywhere from 20% to 50%. I feel this daily as President of the Kansas City chapter of the American [...]
Posted by: Kevin Klinkenberg
It’s often said that Americans love their cars above everything else, and many question the demand for walkable neighborhoods. And yet, as this and other studies have revealed, quality walkable places are highly valued. This shouldn’t be surprising – as human beings, we inherently like to interact with others, and we [...]
We’re obsessed with big: big houses, big churches, big cars, big stores, big food portions. It’s in our nature I suppose to be impressed with size.
When planning for our communities, though, it’s often best to think small. Not small as in small goals or dreams; but small as in the kinds of spaces that [...]
Kevin Klinkenberg reviews Kansas City street design and the importance of getting the details right. By comparing and contrasting two sections of Westport Road, he looks at how each of the street designs work, the details of each and then show why one is so much better than the other.
Peter Park has certainly been on the vanguard of Planning Directors in the last decade or so, first in Milwaukee and now Denver. This article profiles his current thinking and what they are doing now in Denver in terms of planning and zoning.
Park: Milwaukee’s former planner embraces rail as key to urban [...]
Cities around the world are running into the same problems with their infrastructure: how can we create true eco-friendly living where cars, concrete and metal dominate? Its not simple. Problems of old infrastructure and traditional city planning curb significant efforts to recreate a city’s environment. New urban developments, like Blue Springs’ downtown revitalization, are much [...]
The following was written by Kaid Benfield and originally posted on the Switchboard, the NRDC blog:
As many readers of this blog already know, Orenco Station was built as one of the country’s first new, suburban transit-oriented developments. It’s on Portland’s MAX light [...]
In his seminal book “Great Streets”, Allan Jacobs wrote “given a limited budget, the most effective expenditure of funds to improve a street would probably be on trees.”
I couldn’t agree more.
This is not simply an exercise in greenwashing or tree-hugging. In fact, when planning for cities one of the more damaging paths to [...]
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