Community Development

A prophetic film from 1959 offers a diagnosis of the causes and emerging challenges associated with what came to be known as urban sprawl.

December 16, 2011 - ULI via You Tube

Go ahead, define sustainability.  Everyone knows countless, tangled and unconvincing definitions for this word which is quickly losing steam.  The problem is that we’re not sure about how sustainability relates to us except in planetary ways. We’re bombarded with many concepts that if we reduce this by 20%  then we’ll get that in 30 years which helps the earth survive. All’s well, except we’re almost numb because we won’t feel the aggregate effects for quite some time. Obviously, we’re an impatient lot. 

November 29, 2011 - Rick Abelson

I am writing this missive from the living room of a Starbucks. Not that you'd care where I'm writing from. Except this time it's relevant.  Here on Montana Avenue, in Santa Monica, I'm joined by other folks who are also on their laptops, recovering from yoga, or just biding their time. The guy sitting at my table just sold a pilot to Fox. That's nice for him. A few weeks ago I sat next to Hillary Swank here. She's not hurting either.   But others aren't so lucky. To its credit, Starbucks seems to want to do something about it.

October 18, 2011 - Josh Stephens

Detroit is the darling of the media.

September 21, 2011 - Barbara Knecht

It appears that everyone is talking about the impact that sports stadiums have on urban economic development. As soon as one person says they're a terrible idea, another article will retort the benefits brought to a given city.

August 23, 2011 - Initiative for a Competitive Inner City

At the Ford foundations 75th anniversary, Citiwire’s Neal Peirce reports how “ground urban strategies in inclusion and equity” is the secret to a “Just City.”

July 27, 2011 - Citiwire

Los Angeles Designer Julie Kim thinks the city is missing out on an opportunity at public transit hubs to create an environment that promotes interaction. So, Kim spruces up a bus stop with a coffee table and flowers and video records the results.

July 20, 2011 - GOOD Magazine

A comment I hear frequently from planners is that the focus on food and planning is “trendy”. I must admit that this puzzles me quite a bit. Professional planners in rural areas have concentrated on planning for agriculture – food planning – for decades. Before we had professional planners, human populations planned their communities around food, whether they were planning how best to follow herds for hunting, structuring early agricultural societies, or developing the first cities where food proximity and trade were central considerations. 

May 20, 2011 - Lisa Feldstein

In a controversial move, new Florida Governor Rick Scott has appointed Billy Buzzett, vice-president at a development company, to lead the state's Department of Community Affairs.

January 8, 2011 - The St. Petersburg Times

Twin Cities developer and software guru Rick Harrison believes that, through innovative urban design configurations such as 'coving,' suburban areas can be transformed from "disdainable to sustainable."

December 14, 2010 - Star Tribune

In this opinion piece from The Huffington Post, Alex Becker argues that retrofitting suburban landscapes with denser development trumps all other sustainability agendas as the single most important path to a more sustainable future.

December 7, 2010 - The Huffington Post

Appreciation of diversity, social offerings, and aesthetics trump jobs, economy, and safety according to a new survey by Gallup/Knight.

November 16, 2010 - John S. and James L. Knight Foundation

Stacy Mitchell reports on the growing trend of micro-financing, where small business people turn to the local community to get the funding they need to open restaurants or small shops.

August 31, 2010 - Yes! Magazine

A scandal over bonuses and the recession leads to change in project to redevelop Southeast San Diego, but some critics want to see more construction, not just kumbaya.

April 5, 2010 - San Diego Union Tribune

Obama's brand new Office of Sustainable Housing and Communities admits to being inspired by Portland's groundbreaking urban planning policies.

February 7, 2010 - The Oregonian

Shelterforce magazine takes a look at one of the hardest hit areas in New Jersey by the ongoing foreclosure crisis, and a first-in-the-nation property acquisition project that aims to stabilize neighborhood in decline.

July 30, 2009 - Shelterforce Magazine

A proposed toll road near Houston exemplifies an unintended effect of the stimulus: encouraging sprawl.

March 23, 2009 - The New York Times

In Detroit, a couple bought a foreclosure for $1900. They've been steadily piecing together a community out of their neighborhood ever since.

March 9, 2009 - The New York Times

Six architects, planners, public intellectuals and authors give their differing opinions on Bloomberg's plan to turn Broadway into a pedestrian-only space.

March 2, 2009 - Freakonomics - NY Times Blog

The Center for Minority Health and the Adventure Cycling Association partnered to create a bike trail stretching from the Gulf of Mexico to Ontario. The trail was recognized at the 19th Annual Trails Symposium.

November 22, 2008 - Bike-Pgh.org