Check out a recent article of mine in the April issue of Urban Land, entitled Getting Around in the Heart of Texas. It discusses tollways, transit-oriented development, bridges, and even logistics hubs. There is a lot going on in the Dallas/Fort Worth area with regard to transportation. I hope you find it interesting. In the course of researching this article, I stopped at Las Colinas in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas. Las Colinas was started in the 1980s as a master planned mixed use area with office, hotels and residential. It is built on a lake and canal system,…

Last week my son Ellis started daycare at Jardin Magico, a bilingual daycare located near our house in Minneapolis. They teach kids in English and Spanish, serve organic foods, use cloth diapers and make sure kids get time outdoors every day. Perhaps best of all, we can get there by bike. I got the bike bug last year after visiting and biking around the Netherlands, and I am happy to be able to use my bike for everyday needs at home. I’m not the only one – every day there are are several bikes parked outside the daycare, with parents…

Of all the talk lately in the mainstream media about how to be more “green,” the discussion is typically about how we live, not where we live. Rising gas prices have “fueled” the discussion of green even more, and thankfully today’s New York Times contains an Op-Ed by Paul Krugman called “Stranded in Suburbia” that finally brings the topic of “where” we live in to the discussion in to the mainstream media. Everywhere you look, there is talk of green. My local paper, the Star Tribune, published a special section recently on how to be more “green.” It discussed the…

Three years ago the talk at dinner parties was how much people made on their condominiums. Now it is the price of gas. We’ve had it good for so long, and now people are getting nervous when they have to spend upwards of $100 to fill their tank. All of this emphasizes the need for an improved transportion bill by congress next year. Unfortunately, the discussion revolves around how to get the price of gas back down. Even our presidential candidates float the idea of a federal “gas tax holiday” for the summer, a ridiculous notion considering our literally crumbling…

Never in my career would I have dreamed up a senior housing project for artists, but indeed one exists in lovely Burbank, California. It is pretty cool, too. The Burbank Senior Artists Colony is a fairly typical, albeit attractive four story senior housing development on the outside. On the inside are community rooms, art studios, a lawn for yoga and meditation, and a stage for playacting or video productions. The artists colony is a partnership between Meta Housing, the developer, and Engaged Aging, a services provider that strongly believes that BINGO is not the answer for elderly activity. If you…

The latest round of ULI case studies includes Sara Conner Court, located in Hayward, California, which is across the bay from San Francisco. Sara Conner Court is a 57-unit affordable housing project developed by Eden Housing that incorporates several green features. To me, however, the thing that is most impressive about this project is the community outreach. Besides offering after school programs and computer courses to residents, Sara Conner Court sponsors the neighborhood watch for the area. With community outreach programs at Sara Conner Court, Eden Housing reminds us that affordable housing, when done well, can do more than simply…

To be completely honest, attending CNU in Austin was hard to pass up. I really like the city – the climate, the food, the music. But I am doubly happy I attended. CNU gave me a shot in the arm. I learned a lot, heard great speakers, met wonderful people, took good tours, ate well, got to know the city better than I hoped, and well, the Saturday night party was a damn good time. One highlight of the conference was listening to Robert Caro give a speech about his book, the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Power Broker, about the legacy…

Who are all these people with bright yellow bags walking around taking pictures of buildings and sidewalks!? The good people of Austin must think we are crazy. We were given yellow tote bags as part of registration, and everywhere I go I see someone with their bag and camera, standing in a median of a road or some awkward place, taking just the right photo that shows the perfect example of a transect zone, mixed-use, or simply an appropriately-sized sidewalk. Guilty, your honor. Such is the life of an urbanist. About 40 of us camera and bag toting new urbanists…

You may call yourself a new urbanist, but are you living the charter? Do you live within walking distance of neighborhood retail and services? Do you ever use transit? Is your neighborhood mixed-income? Perhaps you don’t even think of yourself as a new urbanist, but you are indeed one by virtue of your location and lifestyle. A quiz created by several young CNU members was rolled out at the conference in Austin, designed to challenge assumptions and allow members to assess their choices. Click here to find out if you indeed are living the charter. (I actually got a score…

An international crew of new urbanist bikers (sounds intimidating, doesn’t it?) assembled at 9AM this morning to cycle around Austin. People from around the U.S., Canada and Great Britain were led by knowledgable locals around downtown, the east side, Lady Bird Lake and Barton Springs. It was all quite wonderful and informative in 70 degree sunny skies. The first stop was at Saltillo Plaza on the city’s historic east side, but more on that later. We next biked along Lady Bird Lake, quite a busy place on a gorgeous Saturday. We crossed the Pfluger Pedestrian Bridge and stopped to discuss…