A global pandemic is the type of resiliency test we plan for, but hope never occurs. We are happy to report that amidst the current difficulties, our compact, walkable, mixed-use, and multigenerational communities are not only faring well but are proving to be a source of comfort to their residents as they shelter in place. [...]

ENGAGING THE VIRTUAL & THE REAL To say that the past six months have changed everything, is hardly an understatement. The way we live, work, play, communicate, and even the way we think have required major adjustments. Many of our daily activities have become virtual, remote, and/or guided by new safety protocols. Meanwhile, as many [...]

The realities of climate change in our collective experience is inescapable; members of the Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) continue to explore important questions about the (not-so-distant) future: Where and how will humanity live as sea levels rise and other phenomena like volatile weather, resource depletion and pollution worsen? Since these are certainties rather than merely [...]

There’s a lot of confusion lately about the difference between mitigation and adaptation. I think this can be be cleared up relatively easily. Mitigation means reducing the impact of climate change. Adaptation means responding to the impact of climate change. One attempts to prevent it from happening or minimize it, and the other one assumes [...]

Listen to Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk on the Future of the American City podcast, interviewed by Charles Waldheim: Listen here. Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk is a pioneering urban planner, architect, and educator. She has been instrumental in developing the City of Miami’s form-based zoning code, Miami 21. Her recent work and teaching focuses on built environment adaptation to climate change. About Future of [...]

This is a multi-part series, see Part 1 for a snippet of background and Part 2 for a discussion of regional issues. I ended Part 2 stating that the path of the last century has preferred big – big business, big projects, big ideas – and has eroded diverse, distributed, and dynamic systems. This trend [...]

This is a multi-part series, see Part 1 for a snippet of background on the problem. I began the last part considering my regular view of the US from the air. For the most part it is unsettled or agricultural land. Villages and towns pop up all over, usually following water or rail, occasionally unprompted [...]

I often find myself flying across the US, choosing the window seat because its more comfortable and also more interesting. While this is a consequence of moving across the country, where much of my professional work remains in the Midwest and East, it provides a lot of fodder for thought about humans, settlements, natural systems, [...]

Creating infill in cities and towns in the form of “pockets of community” is an adaptive land use approach to climate change and population migration. Pockets of community, as conceived of by DPZ, are clusters of housing around a common green space. They differ from neighborhoods, which are mixed use entities that plug into cities. Pockets of community can be parts [...]