For a vibrant, active, economically successful pedestrian street (paseo), it must have the following:

1. Unique, independent restaurants, cafes, coffeehouses, bars (preferably half the number of venues) so the area is worth visiting in the first place.
2. Outdoor seating for all of the above, providing a strong sense of street life.
3. Significant amounts of housing surrounding the district, ideally also above the first or second floors of the pedestrian street.
4. Lots of trees to provide

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Hundreds of pedestrian malls built in downtowns across the country in the 1970s and 80s failed.  However, downtowns overall failed during that time, as regional malls became all the rage in a time before people experienced traffic congestion.

Back to the future:  However, regional malls are failing in the 2000s.  Cities and downtowns are regaining population for the first time in 30 to 50 years in the 2000s.  People are migrating back to city centers because sprawl traffic is relentlessly

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This is the coffeehouse ‘David’ in Athens, Georgia, Blue Sky Cafe, an independent, long-time institution and favorite hangout.  I assume there’s no need to tell you what the coffeehouse Goliath* is that opened up right next door, with little sympathy and remorse if they had put Blue Sky out of business.

Well, the good news is that Blue Sky expanded and is doing better than ever after that certain chain next door opened.  Why?  Because in addition to being a great coffeehouse and cafe, it has

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That’s certainly the case in small towns and cities, but not in the suburbs.  What’s going on?

Suburbs are controlled by a few people.  It was designed and built for the masses.  Homes were built hundreds at a time, by the same firm.  The same firms also built shopping malls and strip malls to accommodate dozens of retailers at a time.  It took a lot of capital to build environments of such large scales, and that capital usually wasn’t local, so because the investors were unfamiliar with the

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A new retail study for a Chicago neighborhood discovered that for every $100 spent on an independent business, $73 went back into the local community.  However, for every $100 spent on chain businesses, only $43 went back into the local economy.

The study, completed by Civic Economics, the leading firm in the country for conducting these kinds of analyses, found that independents had 26% more of their staff locally, bought more than twice as much of their goods and services locally, kept more

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Yes, apparently by 4 to 12 years.

News articles are reporting results of a new study, Suburban sprawl and physical and mental health, from the journal, Public Health.  Here’s an abstract:

“Sprawl significantly predicts chronic medical conditions and health-related quality of life, but not mental health disorders. An increase in sprawl from one standard deviation less to one standard deviation more than average implies 96 more chronic medical problems per 1000 residents, which is

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A study shows that demand for compact housing near transit is likely to more than double by 2025.  That means you should buy now if you want to benefit from the rise in value your property will enjoy.

Hidden in Plain Sight: Capturing the Demand for Housing Near Transit estimates that more than 14.6 million households will rent and buy housing near transit by 2025, double the number that live in these neighborhoods today. That requires 2,100 new residential units near each of the 3,971

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Think about what makes a great indoor destination - a memorable, well-defined space, an inspiring creatively-designed room rather than a series of long hallways amid small, compartmentalized spaces.  Yet the latter is how most of our streets are designed.

Church Street in Burlington, Vermont is an extremely popular outdoor destination mainly because it doesn’t feel like a street.  It feels like a grand room.  One side is terminated by a grand building, and either side of the streets are alive

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Want to build a stronger sense of community?  Print your own money.

That’s what the people in Burlington, Vermont, and 4000 other communities worldwide (not so sure how accurate that is) are doing.  Yes, Burlington Bread is a legal currency, called slices instead of dollars, and in $1, $5, $10, and $20 denominations.  Even the City of Burlington is involved in its growth.

Circulation began in 1998, and merchant membership is around 40 or so, with some well-known local venues, like

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Not at all, but we need to make one distinction - there’s a difference between what we perceive affordability and attainability to mean.  Affordability often means government subsidy, as in, affordable housing program.  People are just a bit edgy about living in anything associated with the words ‘government project’ - especially if you look at the results.

The closest you’ll find today of government subsidy is inclusionary zoning, requiring 15% of all new housing to be a certain % below the

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