Those of us involved in building things - planners, city governments, developers and architects and designers - need to advocate to fundamentally change they physical framework of daily commerce, and we need the support of the citizens to do so.
Read MoreWhat makes New Orleans neighborhoods so great is the same things that make neighborhoods great around the world: variety.
While most of the country was busy zoning their neighborhoods into single-use enclaves of uniformity, New Orleans, as it does, was busy ignoring national urban planning trends and standards. In this case, it was a good call.
As a result, we have retained our multi-use, finer-grained urban fabric of building use and type, and have reaped the benefits, being a top choice to live, work and vacation for humans in general.
Read MoreWe based parking requirements on absolute peak demand - so that even on Black Friday, everyone, by law, gets a parking space. Developers were forced to buy more land, and provide worst-case scenario parking, for free, in order to build. With more than ample parking everywhere, more people choose to drive for trips. Traffic engineers note the roads are getting congested, and design larger, wider roads to provide capacity.
Read MoreThere are a lot of problems with our current approach to residential development. For something in such perpetual demand, it's amazing that the market has not been able to figure out a good way to supply it. We need quality housing in large quantities. Note, that adjective: quality. As we saw in 2006, housing built with no attention to quality or sustainability of place is not truly in demand; it created a valueless bubble that then collapsed.
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