Building a great community is much, much more than just the buildings, streets and public spaces, but it’s still a major part that’s often overlooked and misunderstood.  So, if you’re looking into what makes a compelling physical place, New Urbanism is the ideal benchmark and resource.  Click here for an informative tour.

In a nutshell, it’s about building places that prioritize people rather than cars.  The directive is simple, but it’s also been hard to pull off, and New Urbanists have largely been successful on the suburban rather than urban front.  Fortunately that’s slowly shifting.  Ah, to let the CoolTown market decide (and design) their own fate, that is the solution as we see it.

The CoolTown overview of New Urbanism is right here.  The movement is also referred to as Smart Growth, but that’s more focused on policy.