I don’t recommend spending any more time at Chicago’s O’Hare airport than humanly possible. As much as I love the urbanity of Chicago, their main airport is lacking. I prefer to fly in to Midway, which is just the right size to rub elbows with fellow travelers and exciting takeoffs and landings, and has a lovely, quaint Irish pub, Reilly’s Daughter, which makes flight delays worthwhile. So you’d think my worst experience involving O’Hare was last spring when I flew through Midway on my way to Cleveland. My Northwest flight was late leaving Minneapolis because they had to change a…

A citywide advisory vote on how to replace an aging and earthquake damaged elevated freeway in downtown Seattle took an interesting turn this week. Residents were allowed to vote on two separate solutions, one to dig a $3.4 billion tunnel and the other to rebuild the viaduct for $2.8 billion. Both votes failed. It seems that folks in Seattle want the freeway gone. Perhaps some Seattleites have traveled to San Francisco. Imagine that. They have probably seen the Embarcadero freeway come down after the 1989 earthquake and get replaced by an urbane, at-grade street that allows access to the waterfront.…

I am a product of inner city schools. Frankly, I have mostly fond memories of the Minneapolis Public Schools, particularly South High. Since I again live in Minneapolis and now have an 8-month old, I am concerned about today’s choices in schools. Minneapolis, like many cities, is a pretty cool place to be, but the public school system, although still very good in many ways, is suffering from declining enrollment and bad publicity. I have written about schools in the past, and I will again. I will give one quick story from a recent visit I made to New York…

Placemaking is hard work, as I was reminded in an article called “Placemaking for the Creative Class” that appears in the February 2007 issue of Landscape Architecture magazine. James Richards makes a very good point that there is just so much that goes into it. Yes, as the article discusses, we need a compact urban grid, green space, “third places” like coffee shops, etc., and good public transportation. Mr. Richards is right to point out that placemaking is not programmatic. He interviews people who want all the right amenities, but also want just the right amount of grit and decay. And then you can attract…

Three influential studies were released in the past year that I think are worth a mention. I attended the release of “One-Fifth of America: A Comprehensive Guide to America’s First Suburbs” last February at the Brookings Institution in Washington D.C. It was quite an event. Hillary Clinton spoke. There was talk of a national agenda on urban policy. The main idea of the report is first suburbs are aging (both people and buildings) and pose a major challenge with regard to urban policy. What struck me is here we were listening to members of Congress talk about how to deal…

On a recent trip to Austin, Texas, I decided to check out the partially completed Second Street District redevelopment. It encompasees several blocks between the downtown core and Town Lake, and includes the new city hall and a seven-story apartment complex with ground floor retail. I had most recently read about it in Big-Box Swindle, which I recommend, by the way. It discussed the redevelopment, and the fact that 17 of the 24 businesses are locally-owned. Anyone that pays attention to shiny new downtown development will notice that retail is often chain dominated. Not that chains are evil, but some cities…

The results are in! The following are your comments on the best independent bookstores across the country. Loganberry Books in Shaker Heights, Ohio.  Room after room of used books, comfortable sofas, plus cookies and cider. You can get there by transit from downtown Cleveland! Boulder Bookstore in downtown Boulder, Colorado. Located in a renovated building, it anchors Pearl Street, and survived the arrival and departure of a downtown Borders. In Denver there is the Tattered Cover in LoDo – another great bookstore in a renovated warehouse. City Lights in San Francisco. Great vibe. Carmichael’s Bookstore in Louisville, Kentucky.  Antigone Books in Tucson, Arizona. Located…

The single most exciting thing my fellow urbanists should look for in 2007 is LEED-ND. LEED for Neighborhood Development could turn the green building movement on its head. The core argument of LEED-ND is that all the environmentally-friendly buildings in the world are only partially effective without considering land use patterns. Therefore, LEED-ND ranks entire neighborhoods based on their level of sustainability, including density, transit accessibility and environmental preservation. LEED-ND is going to be a gut check for urbanists. Will we be able to stomach seven units to the acre? Only half of Americans drive, so will we plan for all neighborhoods to have transit access and…

I’m going to discuss architecture. Two separate occasions this past year confirmed to me something that has been on my mind for some time: the balance between “starchitecture” and a quality public realm.   Peter Calthorpe received the prestigious J.C. Nichols Award at the ULI conference in October. In the course of his acceptance speech and a presentation given earlier in the day, he provided a number of insights about the industry. Most striking was his comment about state of present day architecture. He explained that he was bothered that buildings are either neotraditional in design or “hyper-modern schizsophrenic,” as he put it. Calthorpe explained that we need architecture…

What is your favorite bookstore? I realize in my travels that I tend to happen upon wonderful independent bookstores. I don’t necessarily seek them out, but I do seek out great neighborhoods, and it just so happens that the two often go hand in hand. I recently discovered The King’s English in Salt Lake City. I was actually looking for breakfast and discovered a great little retail street (high on the quaint-o-meter) in a leafy part of the city with a gift shop, a little French restaurant, the ubiquitous Starbuck’s, and a lovely little bookstore. I ventured in and wandered among tightly spaced bookshelves in…