Jay Walljasper reviews Pocket Neighborhoods: Creating a Small-Scale Community in a Large-Scale World by architect Ross Chapin. Chapin says groupings of four to twelve households make the best communities.
Chapin says that small clusters of living units or houses that share a common area are the best breeding grounds for neighborliness:
Walljasper summarizes:
"...Chapin points out these commons can take many different forms-an apartment building in Cambridge with a shared backyard, a group of neighbors in Oakland who tore down their backyard fences to create a commons, a block in Baltimore that turned their alley into a pubic commons, or the residential pedestrian streets found in Manhattan Beach, California, and all around Europe."
FULL STORY: How to Design a Neighborhood for Happiness
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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.
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City of El Paso
Ada County Highway District
Placer County
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Cornell University's College of Architecture, Art, and Planning (AAP), the Department of City and Regional Planning (CRP)
Lehigh Valley Planning Commission
City of Portland, ME
Baton Rouge Area Foundation