Kaid Benfield

A Pirate Looks at . . . Seventy?

Reflections on a long career, a great interview, and six sssentials for greener, healthier communities via Kaid Benfield, one of the founders of Smart Growth America

September 11, 2020 - PlaceShakers

Wynyard Quarter

Code Score: A New Aid for Aligning Policy and Vision With Outcomes

A compendium of benefits of walkable urban places, put together by Hazel Borys and Kaid Benfield.

October 2, 2019 - PlaceShakers

Green Healthy Community

Ten Key Ingredients of a Green and Healthy Community

Everyone has a different answer on what makes a great place, depending on how wonky you'd like to get. Kaid Benfield lists his top 10 ingredients for a healthy community.

September 18, 2017 - PlaceMakers

Is Placemaking a 'New Environmentalism'?

Like music, environmentalism's tenets evolved from precedent, and Kaid Benfield hopes they are evolving still.

April 28, 2017 - PlaceShakers

Main Street

What Makes a Good Main Street Work?

What Makes a Good Main Street Work? Kaid Benfield uses Corning, New York, to illustrate five key elements.

December 13, 2016 - PlaceShakers

Balancing the Scales of City Sustainability

Urbanism and smart growth are great for cities, people, and "the environment"—but neighborhood impacts must be mitigated. Kaid Benfield gives pointers on balancing the scales.

May 10, 2016 - PlaceShakers

Household Solar Popularity Builds, As Does Utility Industry Discomfort

Utilities and regulators should be looking forward, not backward, to find ways to invest in progress, rather than trying desperately to cling to yesterday's business model, which is based on encouraging consumption of polluting sources of energy.

May 12, 2015 - PlaceShakers

The Wørd: Placemaking Edition

What's new for placemaking advocacy in 2015? In short, being an effective communicator is in. Being self-concerned and oblivious is out.

January 6, 2015 - PlaceShakers

Berlin Hackeschen Höfe

Lessons Learned from Berlin Shopfronts

Susan Henderson looks to Berlin's delectable shopfronts for pointers. Not from the usual suspects like Kurfürstendamm and Friedrichstrasse, but from the neighborhoods of Prenzlaur Berg, Scheunenviertal, Kreuzberg, and of course, Hackeschen Höfe.

November 10, 2014 - PlaceShakers

An Interview with Kaid Benfield, Urban Resilience Guru

PlaceMakers asks Kaid to give us his idea of where we are in the effort to integrate smart growth strategies in the broadest sense into community planning and design.

October 29, 2014 - PlaceShakers

What's Your 'Elevator Pitch' for Greener, Healthier Cities?

Kaid Benfield shares his placemaking pitch.

September 24, 2014 - NRDC Switchboard

'People Habitat': Kaid Benfield Takes Smart Growth to a Higher Level

Kaid Benfield has a new book out, which Scott Doyon found positively uplifting. In ways beyond what you might be thinking.

April 2, 2014 - PlaceShakers

Where's Your Happy Place?

Now can you qualify, quantify, and index it? Hazel Borys would like you to do so, and gives this data review to help you get started.

November 13, 2012 - PlaceShakers

Improving The Gentrification Process

Kaid Benfield argues that continues revitalization of inner city neighborhoods is essential to achieving an equitable civil society, sustainable patterns of growth and maintaining a tax base to fund civic improvements.

October 22, 2011 - The Atlantic

Avoiding Plannerese: Keep it Simple

Planners, architects, and urban designers talk the talk and walk the walk, but often in a cone of silence, unheard - or at least not understood -- by those outside the profession, says Scott Doyon.

September 3, 2011 - PlaceShakers

Smart Growth = Clean Air

Kaid Benfield presents the evidence that compact development can bring about a decrease in noxious emissions.

September 16, 2010 - NRDC Blog

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