by Abba Jireh | Jul 28, 2026 | Cities
How did Charlotte come to concentrate so many cultural institutions downtown? It’s one of the more surprising stories of culture-led urban revitalization in North America. As a sleepy southern city that rose quickly in the 1980s and 1990s, largely due to...
by ronb | Jun 10, 2026 | Cities
The Beltline is a walking/biking trail that has become the place to see and be seen in Atlanta. Conceived as a transit project linking 45 neighborhoods, the Beltline follows four unused freight rail corridors in a 22-mile loop around the city center. The Beltline is...
by ronb | Jun 28, 2023 | Cities
Ever since Disneyland opened in 1955, the Disney effect has exerted a powerful pull on urban design. Cities and developers have increasingly embraced the notion of controlled environments where everything is color coordinated, meticulously maintained, and programmed...
by ronb | May 31, 2023 | Cities
Housing is by far the number one issue we hear about in cities across the country. Public housing transformation, specifically the challenge of turning around troubled projects into thriving mixed-income communities, is one of the most instructive and consequential...
by ronb | May 31, 2023 | Cities
Most North American cities are laid out on a city grid, and that urban planning decision, made centuries ago, still shapes daily life in ways most residents never think about. We explore the roots of North American city grids in the opening episode of the Saving the...
by ronb | May 17, 2023 | Cities
What is a smart city? The term itself is a marketing moniker created by IBM around 2009 to promote the use of big data to local governments. The phrase has been widely adopted ever since, but the reality of smart city technology is more complicated than the branding...
