Fair Trade Placemaking: Are you being compensated for your choices?

Over a decade ago Andrés Duany of DPZ taught me that, more times than not, NIMBY opposition stems from a sense that proposed development is not of equal or greater value to what would be lost.

Tony Nelessen, the inventor of the Visual Preference Survey, confirmed this lesson a few years later when he came to my town and conducted one. 

Gettin’ Paid: Placemaking and the Importance of Compensation

Over a decade ago Andres Duany of DPZ taught me that, more times than not, NIMBY opposition stems from a sense that proposed development is not of equal or greater value to what would be lost.

Tony Nelessen, the inventor of the Visual Preference Survey, confirmed this lesson a few years later when he came to my town and conducted one. 

Let’s Get Small: Placemaking as Antidote for Shrinking City Budgets

It’s that time of year, but it’s no holiday party in most city budget meetings. Cities across the continent are looking for ways to make ends meet. A quick survey turns up some sobering city deficits: New York $4.4 billion, Toronto $225 million, Washington DC $188 million, Houston $120 million, L.A. $87 million, San Diego $72 million, Cleveland $28 million. States are worse still: California $6 billion, Illinois $15 billion, Arizona $1.5 billion. Those are some major gaps to fill, before we make it to the federal level.

A Rapid Kick Off for CNU18 Atlanta — “Urban Labs” Point to May Conference

The 18th national conference of the Congress for the New Urbanism doesn’t officially start until May 19, 2010. But Atlanta, the host city, is getting a running start.

Conference organizers in Atlanta are working with Metro governments, non-profits, and the private sector to create lead-in events tied to all the big themes of the May gathering. The broadest of the themes, of course, is the “healthy communities” category, reflecting the association with the Atlanta-based Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You can read about that in one of our previous posts.

There are also opportunities to integrate CNU responses on topics having to do with transportation and transit, sustainability, affordability, “aging in place,” and retrofitting suburban sprawl.

The first of the CNU18 lead-in events were held on January 14 and 15. Central Atlanta Progress, the leading convener of a broad cross section of advocates for downtown redevelopment, joined with CNU18 organizers to stage an information forum and a one-day urban lab in one of the downtown neighborhoods. The two events attracted an impressive array of local leaders and organizations – plus CNU president John Norquist, CNU co-founder Stefanos Polyzoides, and international designer/planner Dhiru Thadani.

Here’s a video overview.

Norquist provides a strong “why Atlanta” explanation here:

And Polyzoides offers his overview on Atlanta’s challenges and opportunities here:

Next up is another lead-in lab opportunity on March 1 and 2, when Sustainable Urbanism author Doug Farr appears as one of the main speakers at the annual Greenprints conference. The conference is sponsored by Southface, the Atlanta-based non-profit that trains builders, developers, and others in state-of-the-art green building practices.

— Ben Brown