In our tribute to Jane Jacobs this week, the following is classic Jane.  Here’s a favorite study conclusion she included in her last book, Dark Age Ahead (pg. 75.)  The question is what happens when you close roads?  The study findings from over sixty cases worldwide:

“Planner’s models assume that closing a road causes the traffic using it to move elsewhere… The study team… found that computer models used by urban transportation planners yield incorrect answers… When a road is closed, an

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Most people associate Jane Jacobs (being remembered here this week) as an urbanist and sociologist.  But if anything, she’s an urban economist, and in this interview reveals in her ever poetic way the economic need for the creative class:

“Well I think that it’s a more dangerous situation - the standardization of what is being produced or reproduced everywhere, where you can see it in the malls, in every city, the same chains, the same products are to be found. This goes even deeper in the

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Jane Jacobs was, and is, the sage of urban planning.  Here are a few of her contributions that form the foundation for urban planning and development today and tomorrow:

Diversity.  This was the single underlying theme of her seminal work, The Death and Life of Great American Cities, and not coincidentally, the theme of Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class.  Her four basic elements for diversity:  A concentration of people; small blocks; old and new buildings; a major, easily

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There is perhaps no person in the 20th Century who was more influential in raising the benchmark for our quality of life in cities than Jane Jacobs, who died on April 25, 2006 at 89.

Jacobs’ defining book, Death and Life of Great American Cities may have been written in 1961, but it still serves as a must-read and reference guide for contemporary urban planning.

Ms. Jacobs’ importance was recognized here a couple of years ago in the entry, Every town needs a Jane Jacobs.

I saw her speak at

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It looks like the American Dream my be redefining itself, or maybe the image of the single-family house with the backyard and white picket fence never really was more than a huge campaign by GM and home builders to sell more of their product to the masses.  It worked, but it’s weakening now.  Coincidence that so are GM and mall developers?

Census studies show that major metropolitan areas are losing population, and since the same studies show downtowns are increasing in population, it

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What if one extraordinary woman wanted to help revitalize an economically-ravaged urban neighborhood, provide truly attractive housing for its residents, and provide a model for environmental stewardship and health?  Then that would be Nancy Biberman, president of WHEDCo (Women’s Housing and Economic Development Corporation), a nonprofit dedicated to bringing economic well-being to places where there is little.

Featured in the NY Times, Nancy’s group is developing Urban Horizons II and The

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While the Belmar development profiled yesterday is a great example of mixed-use development (albeit not one for the creative class), it also deserves kudos for its green building, as covered in this month’s New Urban News.

Pedestrian and Transit Orientation
The amount of sprawl avoided by such mixed-use compact development is the most under-appreciated, but by far creates the most significant environmental impact. 

Building Design
- Many of the buildings are designed using LEED green

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What to do with 104 acres/23 blocks of failed (the trend nowadays) regional shopping mall?  Well, after you get over how much land these malls really do eat up, you can find a visionary investment team like Continuum Partners to turn it into an urban village, as the image shows.

Yes, the homes in the new mixed-use development of Belmar in Lakewood, Colorado are priced too high for the average person and the stores are mostly chains - not a primary destination for the creative class - but the

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If you’re educated, urban areas are ‘in’, and have been for quite some time.  The Associated Press analyzed census data for 21 of the largest cities from 1970 up to 2004 and found that nearly all have added college graduates even though many had lost population overall, as highlighted in a recent CNN story.  The most educated?  Not surprisingly, Seattle (pictured), with more than half of adults have bachelor’s degrees, followed by San Francisco, Washington DC and Austin.

What’s the big deal? 

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For the last few decades, we were pretty much forced to drive to malls to shop at chains.  It seems like the tide is turning, as one retail consultant puts it, “The behemoth mall is clearly giving way to more manageable, accessible and open-air centers.“  In other words, downtown main streets are ‘in’ again.

In this Wall Street Journal article, the company that owns all those ‘Mills’ malls, Mills Corp., is being sold on account of disappointing performances over its 42 malls.  The tipping

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