This post summarizes the CNU21 Preview Podcast, “Thinking Globally, Building Locally.” CNU21 is this year’s annual Congress for the New Urbanism conference and will be held at the Grand America Hotel in Salt Lake City, Utah May 29th through June 1st, 2013. For this podcast preview, John Norquist, the current President of the Congress for the New Urbanism asked Bob Dean, the Deputy Executive Director for Local Planning with the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), and Christie Oostema, Planning Director at Envision Utah, questions about how their cities are thinking globally but building locally. If you hadn’t already gathered, Chicag[...]

“There is growing concern for the issue of sustainability — whether the Earth's resources will be able to meet the demands of a growing human population that has rising aspirations for consumption and quality of life, while maintaining the rich diversity of the natural environment or biosphere.” – American Planning Association (APA)

Communities across the country continue to face the effects and challenges of a changing climate. As we move into the future, there is a pressing need to plan for these changes, and ensure that local, regional, and national efforts are coordinated. The need for community involvement in the planning process has never been greater. Comm[...]

In 2010, Siemens and The Economist published the first reliable index ranking for green cities worldwide. Among many other indexes concerning this subject published in the past few years, this is the first one with a specific chapter for Latin America. The result of this index showed a phenomenon that was clear to everyone but that had never been confirmed by a technical source. Cities in Latin America started to care more about sustainability, but the cities that didn't care are now in clear decline, development in this matter shifted towards Brazil, Colombia and Mexico, leaving once well-planned cities like Montevideo and Buenos Aires lagging in compariso[...]

Global energy demand continues to grow and tidal wave energy generation devices can provide a significant source of renewable energy. Technological developments in offshore engineering, and the rising cost of traditional energy, means that offshore energy resources will be economic in the next few years. Tidal wave energy is a form of hydropower that converts the energy of tides into useful forms of power - mainly electricity. Although not yet widely used, tidal power has potential for future electricity generation. Tides are more predictable than wind energy and solar power, as there can be bigger variances in the amount and levels of sunlight and w[...]

In December 2011, a former Grid blogger, Yosef Robinson, wrote a piece about the reconstruction of the Turcot Interchange, a major highway junction in Montreal, Canada. The original proposal came about as the aging infrastructure was beginning to crumble. The project faced fierce opposition, as it planned to widen the interchange (going against everything we know about dealing with congestion), and also proposed to take the interchange off of its pillars and down to street-level. This would result in the expropriation of a large number of homes in the St-Henri neighbourhood and building a giant wall, 5 stories high in some places, throughout St-Henri.

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A tremendously ambitious book, A Pattern Language by Christopher Alexander, Sara Ishikawa and Murray Silverstein attempts to create a language that developers and urban planners can use to shape our environment.  The author’s intent is to create a universal language that can be applied to all development projects, in an attempt to encourage the creation of more functional, magnificent places.  Such an undertaking is colossal by its very nature, and while the authors haven’t written something that is flawless, they have succeeded in crafting a book that I believe will be a truly great resource for urban planners, designers, and developers alike.

A [...]

Combining infrastructure and public art is something I’m passionate about. It just seems so obvious, both aesthetically and financially, to combine the two harmoniously. Coeur d’Alene, Idaho has accomplished just that.

Coeur d’Alene (“KOR-duh-LANE”) Idaho is about a forty-five-minute drive East on I-90 from Spokane, Washington. The two cities and their suburbs are considered the same metro area by the Census Bureau, as of 2011. Both share commuters, tourists, and bargain shoppers alike.

As a part of a midtown place-making project, the Coeur d’Alene Arts Commission sent out a Call to Arti[...]

In 1903, landscape architect John Charles Olmsted wrote that "Seattle possesses extraordinary landscape advantages in having a great abundance and variety of water views and views of wooded hills and distant mountains and snow-capped peaks. I do not know of any place where the natural advantages for parks are better than here. They can be made very attractive and will be, in time, be one of the things that will make Seattle known all over the world." That same year, city leaders hired John Charles Olmsted and Frederick Law Olmsted, Jr. (the sons of famous landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted) to develop a comprehensive plan for Seattle’s park system.

Maybe one of the biggest surprises you’ll find in Detroit is the presence of a great bike culture. This is surprising for two main reasons:

Detroit is the Motor City: a major part of your associations with Detroit deal with the auto industry here, and the impacts of the industry’s elite on transportation and infrastructure in the city; streets in Detroit are built for a single use – travel by automobile, right?

Detroit is an extremely poor city, so poor the State of Michigan has placed it under Emergency Financial Management; Detroit can’t possibly be investing in bicycli[...]

American Legacy Tours - located at 1218 Vine Street in Cincinnati’s historic Over the Rhine (OTR) - has continued to gain popularity, media attention and distinction since their opening in 2008. The company, founded by a small group of friends, offers a diverse range of engaging walking tours through Cincinnati Heritage, legend and folklore. These tours, which are facilitated from well-dressed and well-versed tour guides, indeed “make history engaging and entertaining for everyone,” as their mission statement proudly boasts.

Their newest attraction, the Queen City Ultimate Underground Tour, which opened April 27, 2013, plunges history enthusi[...]

The city of Lincoln, Nebraska has strived to become a top green community within the Midwest region. One way that Lincoln has successfully shifted toward sustainable thinking is through its implementation of the Cleaner, Greener Lincoln Initiative.

The Cleaner, Greener Lincoln Initiative has encouraged “green” living within the city of Lincoln and has been implemented throughout the city from city department buildings, public schools, and even much of the community in general. The city has implemented several focus areas including: Maintaining good air quality; Water quality and c[...]

The summer of 2012 saw a drastic uptick in the number of shootings and murders across the city of Chicago, Illinois. While many metropolitan areas, including New York City, have been experiencing historic lows in their homicide and violent crime rates, Chicago saw 532 murders last year, a number higher than troop killings in Afghanistan. And so naturally social theorists, community development officials and urban planners cast about for the root cause of all this violence, hoping to find some explanation for all these seemingly senseless acts.

A map of Chicago's homicides in 2012

Mostly by coincid[...]