For a laugh (and perhaps a good cry), click on this link to the Strong Towns website and a video called “Conversations With an Engineer.” Its deadpan delivery is funny, but its mindset never swerves out of its lane, if you will. We’ve all been there, haven’t we? We try to create an attractive, lively urban environment, and the engineer scuttles it all in the name of “improvement,” “safety” and the dreaded “standard.” Case in point: 42nd Street in Minneapolis The City of Minneapolis, using federal funding, is currently completing a cross-city, on-street bike route that primarily runs through a…

Tell me this, how many people enjoy changing planes at O’Hare? It was announced the other day that Wisconsin is losing their stimulus funding to create rail service from Madison to Milwaukee, something the incoming governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, was opposed to. He cites the cost to the state for maintaining the service, and questions who will ride between the two cities. Taken in that context, Mr. Walker is probably right – there will be a cost borne to the state for continued service, and perhaps there will be fewer riders between Madison and Milwaukee than the existing service…

Created by Brian Boyle and Issue Media Group, The Line is one of several online publications around the country that focus on neighborhoods. Take a moment and browse to see if Issue Media has a presence in your town. The Line recently interviewed me to get my thoughts on urbanism in the Twin Cities and elsewhere. Read my interview in The Line here. Happy reading.

Singers have long sung the praises of cities. Frank Sinatra spread the news about New York, and Art Garfunkel sang wistfully of the same city. John Lennon made New York City cool all over again, even in the 1970s. Bruce Springsteen sang about the backstreets and 10th Avenue. And of course Petula Clark sang about downtown. All these urban tunes, but never has a band directly sang about suburbs and sprawl…until now. Arcade Fire in their wonderful new album “The Suburbs” sing about suburban alienation, and for the first time in rock ‘n’ roll, directly indicate that urban form and…

OK, I am a confessed plane geek. See for yourself in this 2007 post. Those of you out there who also like airplanes (come on, admit it) will appreciate this…. Knowing that Delta Airlines was retiring the oldest of their DC-9s (the series 30 and 40), built in the late 1960s, in April I used frequent flyer miles to fly one last trip on the old birds. I boarded a DC-9, ship number N8928E, built in 1967 for Eastern Airlines, and flew to Sioux Falls and turned right around and flew back. Just for the hell of it. That was…

In a 2005 article I wrote about LEED-ND for Urban Land magazine, Doug Farr, an architect and urban designer and founder of Farr Associates in Chicago, discussed the “hot white line” where walkable urban areas meet the sprawling, auto-dependent world. Now that LEED-ND is “real,” it is worth noting exactly where that “hot white line” can be found. Take for example the work of a colleague of mine, Brendon Slotterback. On his website, he analyses what areas of the Twin Cities would be qualified for the location efficient prerequisites of LEED-ND. Take Brendon’s great work, apply it to your metro…

“Portland is just a street in Minneapolis,” proclaimed Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak. Sure, he was standing next to musician and bicycling advocate David Byrne at a “Policy and a Pint” seminar promoting bicycling. And yes, he was being a bit tongue-in-cheek, primarily to rouse a response from Minneapolis bicycle advocates who are tired of perpetually coming in second to Portland in terms of cycling. Still, and even Mayor Rybak knows this, Minneapolis could learn a thing or two from Portland (the one in Oregon) on urban design, effective creation of complete neighborhoods, and the attention to detail and financing involved…

So there I was, Joe Urban, sipping my morning joe, listening to NPR and reading Metropolis magazine online. In Metropolis was a short article about suburban general stores. The idea is neat – every suburban subdivision gets a bodega – a general store, where residents can, as the article explains, “pick up sundry items and drop off recycling, drop off DVDs and buy stamps – all within a five minute walk.” They claim that doing so, a 500-unit subdivision would save 45,000 gallons of gas per year. At the very moment I was reading this, NPR was announcing that Blockbuster…

Perhaps because I just witnessed the birth of my second son, I couldn’t help but notice the discussion of Birth Places in Christopher Alexander’s “A Pattern Language” (for those of you who treat A Pattern Language like the bible, Birth Places can be found in the “Book” of Towns, “Verse” 65). It makes perfect sense – birth and death are part of life and should be any healthy community. As Alexander writes, “It seems unlikely that any process which treats childbirth as a sickness could possibly he a healthy part of a healthy society.” Therefore: “Build local birth places where…

If you have never been to the Town Center at San Elijo Hills, I encourage you to visit at once. Located about 30 miles north of downtown San Diego, it is the finest marriage of land use and transportation planning in a suburban setting that I am aware of in the United States. It should serve as an example for anyone seeking a holistic solution to achieve attractive, functional mixed-use suburban development. You can view pictures of San Elijo Hills here. I was very impressed upon my first visit five years ago, and I recently returned to San Elijo Hills…