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Blog Posts

Two Porch Crashes, One Block: Why Park Avenue Needs Quick-Build Safety Now

Late last month, a car smashed through a front porch along Park Avenue in Minneapolis — again. It’s time for the county to stop waiting and start acting.

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Portland Advocates Defend Life-Saving Street Design — and Win a Pause

A 66% decrease in crashes wasn’t enough to protect these traffic diverters, but the unified efforts of local advocacy groups and city officials might be.

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When a Street Kills a Child, We Put the Parents on Trial

When our infrastructure makes normal childhood behavior life-threatening, allowing kids to do typical childhood activities becomes reckless endangerment.

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These Delays Are Making Housing Less Affordable

Slow permitting, shifting utility requirements, and inconsistent rules threaten the small-scale development that cities rely on. Here’s one developer’s story.

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How Places Form People: The Moral Pedagogy of Urban Design

Design doesn’t just reflect our values — it forms them. If we want citizens who are engaged, generous, and resilient, we need places that cultivate those virtues.

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Why This Canadian City Said Goodbye to Parking Mandates (And How It Really Happened)

How a passionate group of locals cracked Nanaimo’s stubborn parking rules—and unlocked new possibilities for housing and community.

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The Road That Killed Legend Jenkins Was Working Exactly as Designed

When a child is killed on a street like West Hudson Boulevard, it’s not a tragic fluke. It’s the outcome we designed for.

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After 3 Crashes in 4 Days, Massachusetts Residents Rally for Safer Streets

Four days. Three crashes. Two lives lost. One life changed forever. For residents of Fairhaven and New Bedford, this wasn’t just a bad weekend; it was a turning point.

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Chicago and Denver Just Ditched Parking Mandates—What Does That Mean?

Chicago and Denver just joined a growing list of cities including Anchorage, Minneapolis, and Austin in rethinking how city space is used, and what we pay for. 

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Minneapolis Residents Take Action To Make Their Streets Safer

After a car crash damaged three houses, these Minneapolis residents are done waiting for officials to act. They're demonstrating a better way of responding to crashes.

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Burned Out and Backlogged: The Real Blockade in LA’s Post-Fire Recovery

Los Angeles is desperate to rebuild after the wildfires that destroyed nearly 60,000 acres back in January. So why is it that 6 months later, not much has changed?

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Is the City the Problem or the Solution?

State preemption can remove obstacles, but it can’t build the local capacity that's required for lasting reform.

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How To Make Your City Stronger With 4 Hours and a Shovel

Advocates in Lynchburg, Virginia, are proving that you don't need an official task force to make your city stronger. You just need to care enough to show up.

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Are Walking Tours the Missing Piece in Local Planning?

Charlottesville’s political wounds ran deep. Now, the city is turning to bikes, sidewalks, and street-level trust to chart a new course.

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Chop or Adapt? 6 Ways To Fix Sidewalks Without Losing Urban Trees

Here are six proven techniques that allow communities to preserve mature trees while restoring sidewalks to safe, walkable condition.

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15 Years Later, the Bottom-Up Approach Is Still Active on Broad Avenue

In 2010, this community in Memphis, Tennessee, showed how resident-led, city-backed change can transform a place. That pattern is still playing out today.

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How Would Your Town Welcome 5,000 New Neighbors?

Every town will be asked to grow. Maybe not today, maybe not all at once. But when that moment comes, how will yours go about it?

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What Happens When Residents Act and Cities Shut It Down

When tension builds between grassroots action and bureaucratic boundaries, cities must choose: partnership or pushback.

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Chicago Slashes Parking Mandates In a Big Win for Small Developers

A new ordinance removes costly parking requirements across most of Chicago, clearing the way for more affordable housing and business development.

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What We Lost When We Built the Claiborne Expressway

On Ash Wednesday, 1966, a highway carved up New Orleans, taking families, flowers, and futures with it. Today, the attempts to rectify those wrongs stop short of actually treating the wound.

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If John Locke Pulled Up to the Curb and Found No Space

John Locke’s 17th-century proviso can help us understand the tangled web of private property rights, public space, and parking rules in North America today.

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Annapolis Needs Safe Street Design, Not Orange Flags

In April, a child was hit in a crosswalk outside a library in Annapolis, MD. The official response? Orange flags that put responsibility on people walking, not on the street design that enabled the crash.

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Six Roundabouts to Nowhere

What do you get when you combine too much funding, a broken development model, and no clear priorities? A six-roundabout interchange built to serve big-box stores that are already closing.

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When Parents Are Charged but the Stroad Is the Culprit

There is nothing radical or reckless about letting your child cross the street. So why are parents across the country facing criminal charges for doing just that?

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