Ideas for Housing Opportunity: Some Sorta Oldish, Lots Very NUish

The latest in a list of tip-of-the-spear practitioners combining their own experience and expertise with the lessons of others who share similar commitments to the easy-to-grasp, hard-to-realize ideas driving new urbanism.

1 minute read

May 27, 2015, 10:00 AM PDT

By Hazel Borys


"When we look back on this period, we might discover that the effort to ramp up realistic approaches to the challenges of community affordability reached some sort of tipping point in the spring and summer of 2015."

"It surely had something to do with the passion and impatience on display in Dallas when the Congress for the New Urbanism held its 23rd annual gathering, April 29-May 2."

Ben Brown goes on to point out John Anderson's innovations on multifamily and Bruce Tolar's on cottage courts. "For the big developer, 200 units may be the minimum to pay for all of the specialists. For the small developer, any number may make sense for building a portfolio with sound, long-term investments. New urbanists bring a certain skill set to infill development: ‘They have a very good idea of the missing teeth in a neighborhood,’ Anderson says. ‘If you provide the missing teeth, your neighborhood is now a perfect smile and the units will be worth more than the ones on the highway.’"

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