New Urbanism

Aerial view of downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with dense, low-rise housing in foreground.

A Better Understanding of Smart Growth Benefits

Smart Growth creates compact, multimodal communities where residents consume less land, drive less, and rely more on non-auto modes. Planners have important stories to tell about the benefits of Smart Growth.

March 14, 2024 - Todd Litman

Old wooden bridge with steel railings at the War Eagle River in Rogers, Arkansas.

200-Acre Traditional Neighborhood Development Coming to Northwest Arkansas

A local group recently completed the purchase of 200 acres near Rogers, in Benton County, Arkansas, that will become a master-planned, mixed-use neighborhood called Warren Park.

August 28, 2023 - TB&P

View of docks on lake surrounded by green trees and lawns with one white house at right

A Primer on Suburban Urbanism

How one master-planned development used lower-density urbanism principles to build a community focused on affordability, sustainability, and conservation.

July 6, 2023 - Common Edge

Walkable street in Southern Village in Chapel Hill, North Carolina

A ‘New Urbanism’ Travelogue

I visited three New Urbanist developments in North Carolina. Here's what I liked, what I didn't like, and what I learned.

June 16, 2023 - Michael Lewyn

Aerial view of historic Oxford, England street with old buildings and red double-decker bus

When Planning Issues Become ‘Culture Wars’

‘Commonsense’ urbanism projects are being painted by opponents as sinister plots to limit movement and erode property rights.

June 1, 2023 - Governing

Denver Region

What Is the Transect?

In urbanism and planning, the term transect provides a conceptual framework for understanding how the scale of built environments can vary from place to place.

August 18, 2022 - James Brasuell

Celebration Florida

Disney Plans New Residential Developments

Despite the less-than-magical results of its experiment in Celebration, Florida, Disney has announced plans to build a chain of master-planned communities around the country.

February 17, 2022 - The Verge

Walkable DC

Urban Villages: The Key to Sustainable Community Economic Development

Compact, walkable urban villages support sustainable economic development by reducing transportation costs, leaving residents with more money to spend on local goods, and by creating more efficient and attractive commercial districts.

January 25, 2022 - Todd Litman

Hells Kitchen Sidewalk New York City

Looking Beyond the 'Sidewalk Ballet:' Jane Jacobs in the 21st Century

While The Death and Life of Great American Cities remains an urban planning classic, today's planners must contend with challenges that Jacobs couldn't have anticipated.

August 12, 2021 - The Globe and Mail (Toronto)

Los Angeles Road

Road Design Still Privileges Cars

Author Jeff Speck discusses the progress made since he first wrote Walkable City–and how far we still have to go to build streets that are safe for all.

August 9, 2021 - Governing

New York City

How the Built Environment Impacts Public Health

New research sheds light on how the brain responds to urban environments and architecture.

June 18, 2021 - American Society Of Landscape Architects

Jane Jacobs

Deconstructing Saint Jane

The iconic urban thinker has influenced generations of planners, but how do her ideas hold up in an age of massive upheaval and economic inequality?

March 14, 2021 - Urban Omnibus

Ocean Grove Sidewalk

Defining the Buzzword: What's a 15-Minute City?

What does it mean to be a 15-minute city?

February 14, 2021 - CNU Public Square

Seaside Entrance

Reassessing New Urbanism

A thematic issue of the peer reviewed journal Urban Planning provides a framework for reassessing New Urbanism.

December 29, 2020 - Urban Planning

Seaside Entrance

What Is New Urbanism?

New Urbanism is one of the most influential planning and urban design reform movements of recent decades.

November 30, 2020 - James Brasuell

The Villages, Florida

The Villages and the Dangers of Holding Too Tightly to the Past

Some parts of The Villages, Florida, the nation's largest retirement community and one of its most popular master planned communities, bear a striking resemblance to the neotraditional development favored by famous early examples of New Urbanism.

July 20, 2020 - James Brasuell

Campus Martius

Different Types of Pro-Development Urbanism, Explained

Can't tell New Urbanism from YIMBY? This post tries to help.

December 3, 2019 - Greater Greater Washington

Seaside Entrance

New Urbanism and Jacobs: A Tangled Disconnect

New Urbanism was in part born of the criticisms of 20th century planning principles popularized by Jane Jacobs, but Jacobs infamously derided the new school of thought.

May 31, 2019 - Fanis Grammenos

Clearwater Florida

New Urbanists and New Housing

The Charter of the New Urbanism favors infill development, yet new urbanists sometimes oppose infill, especially in historic urban areas. This post speculates on why that might be the case.

November 11, 2018 - Michael Lewyn

Plan Voisin

Op-Ed: Utopian Thinking Poses Continued Dangers for Urbanists

Charles Wolfe calls attention to similarities between contemporary urbanism and yesterday's debunked utopias. The two may differ in substance, but both tend toward a certain level of dogma that isn't necessarily helpful on the ground.

October 30, 2018 - Public Square: A CNU Journal

News from HUD User

HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research

Call for Speakers

Mpact Transit + Community

New Updates on PD&R Edge

HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research

Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

Top Websites

The best of the Internet—since 2002.

Top Apps

Planning apps for a brave new world.

Top Schools

The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.

Planning for Universal Design

Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.