Story: a guy gets up in front of a crowded public meeting about a proposed project and says “I have two questions. Is this a done deal and will I get assesssed for it?” Upon hearing the answer to the first question is “yes” and the second is “no,” he says thank you and promptly walks out of the room. That is one of the easiest dealings with a NIMBY I’ve ever heard. I wish all public meetings would go this way. Unfortunately, NIMBYs continue to be “mad as hell,” as Scott Doyon discussed in a recent post about NIMBYs…

I just saw Charles Landry speak. Mr. Landry is a worldly urban thinker, and I found his presentation very enlightening. One of the many pithy quotes he recited was “if your plan starts with parking, your vision may not be good enough.” So to butcher an old expression, I must say I concur. Too often, we can’t see the forest for the trees in urban development. We do start with the parking (trees), addressing design and context (forest) secondly. I was just in a charrette where the discussion immediately went to parking. How much parking we could get under the…

A number of things bothered me about a recent article in the Minneapolis Star Tribune . The article discusses how suburban municipalities in the Twin Cities are being forced by multiple forces affecting the real estate market to scale back “utopian” dreams of large-scale mixed-use developments and accept single-use projects, often driven by large corporations. The article didn’t really address two important things: 1) Much has changed in terms of demand for real estate development, particularly housing, and 2) mixed-use urban developments are difficult to fully achieve in a suburban setting. The article made me think about the large mixed-use…

Yesterday’s first-ever Cyclovia in Minneapolis was a rousing success. Actually called Open Streets and organized by the Minneapolis Bicycle Coalition, Minneapolitans were able to ride their bikes on Lyndale Avenue, which was closed to cars from 42nd Street to 22nd Street. Much of that roadway runs through some fairly prominent retail and mixed-use areas, which provided a wonderful urban setting for people of all ages to get out and ride and enjoy the whole street, free of cars, for a late spring Sunday. My colleague John Breitinger from NorthMarq posted photos at Flickr here. As some of the photos show,…

CNU 19 featured a presentation by Mike Lydon called “Sprawl Retrofit at the Micro Scale: Repairing in All Dimensions.” Mike Lydon is founding principal of The Street Plans Collaborative, and he discussed “tactical urbanism,” an effort to introduce urbanity in the short-term to encourage long-term changes. For example, a neighborhood group temporarily plants trees (in pots) at a treeless commercial corner, paints bike lanes and places temporary bike racks on the street, sets out temporary sidewalk tables and chairs, or even temporary stores (a food cart, perhaps). Most “temporary” improvements can be made at little cost and in short order.…

What isn’t happening in Madison this morning? Have a look at these photos and see for yourself. Stefanos Polyzoides, a founding member of CNU, eloquently pointed out yesterday that we must “access reality through observation.” Well, I observed Madison, and it is real. Everything is going on this morning. People are out and about at the capitol square for the farmers market, on State Street for the classic car show, and generally everywhere, walking, biking and enjoying the city. There is also live music (formal and the busking kind), livestock (cows mooing for the crowd), practitioners of free speech (mostly…

“Cities require management and need to leverage their fixed-cost investment.” – Ed Glaeser “We need discipline in our planning.” – Mike Krusee “We need modes of transportation that feed eachother, not compete.” – John Robert Smith What do all of these comments have in common? They were uttered during CNU 19 by speakers who consider themseves conservative or Republican. This is important because new urbanists are too often seen as blue, liberal, elites from the coasts. If CNU is to get over the next hump, it must get its message across to conservatives. New urbanism – it just performs better.…

It has been 14 years since I graduated from UW Madison (I was half my age when I started school here in 1993), but as I biked up State Street I couldn’t help but sing Bob Dylan’s My Back Pages to myself – “I was so much older then, I’m younger than that now.” “What time is this place?” is the question that UW professor William Cronon asked at the CNU 19 opening plenary last night at the Overture Center on State Street. Much has changed, and much has stayed the same. The Overture Center had previous incarnations as various…

Today’s topic in the first of a long line of Urban Boo-boos is The Forch. The fake front porch or the faux front porch. You’ve all seen them in city and suburb; a front porch that may (or may not) look good from the street, that the builder or developer added to make the neighborhood look “old-timey.” But they are too small to be functional. As a result, they don’t get used and the neighborhood thus has fewer eyes on the street. Even if the street isn’t too wide, has sidewalks and a nice tree canopy and people are out…

Aaah, Madison. I’ll be there tomorrow through Sunday at CNU 19. I will be part of a CNU team blogging about the conference, and I encourage you to follow us at http://liveblog.cnu19.org/. I’ll be covering a tour of Milwaukee led by former mayor and current CNU President John Norquist, as well as in-depth sessions on Retrofitting Suburbia, how to implement walkable thoroughfares (not as easy as you think!), a tour of Middleton Hills, presentations by William Cronon (professor at UW Madison) and Will Allen (founder of Growing Power), a Q and A with Ed Glaeser (author of Triumph of the…