One article you simply MUST read: "Cities for People—or Cars?"

Photo credit: Shutterstock, via The American Conservative

I'm pulling two paragraphs below as teaser, but you simply must read the entire essay at The American Conservative, which commissioned Charles "Strong Towns" Marohn to write it.

Let that soak in. New Urbanism in this context is neither a "liberal" nor "conservative" issue. It is a "people" issue.

Now, know this: Marohn's essay might as well be Platform Plank Numero Uno in the Baylor for Mayor independent campaign. It is principled, positive, and borne out in voluminous human experience, all across America and the planet:

New Urbanism is a civic design movement ... (advocating) the reforming development practices to support traditional patterns: building close-together homes in slow increments over time and storefronts pulled up to the street instead of buried behind nearly empty parking lots—designing cities and towns for people first and then for automobiles, not the other way around.

What good is independence without independent thinking? Please read Marohn's entire essay.

Cities for People—or Cars?: New Urbanism rediscovers centuries of walkable wisdom, by Charles Marohn (The American Conservative)

... The central task of the Millennial generation is not going to be expanding the boundaries of our cities but managing their contraction. We must find a way to unwind all of these widely dispersed and unproductive investments while providing opportunities for a good life—a modernized American Dream—in strong cities, towns, and neighborhoods. And we have to do all of this with the drag of large debts and a failed national system for growth, development, and economic management that largely associates auto-based development with progress.

This makes the work of the New Urbanists even more important. They are the ones who have applied the rigor needed to understand how a city really works. What are the nuances that make a neighborhood cohesive? Where do we place public buildings and how do we design them so they are not just functional but make a city wealthier? How do we make “good neighbors,” as Robert Frost might ask, without fences and a large setback?