Latest posts
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Resident Input That Actually Shapes Projects
There is a real difference between asking people what they think and telling them what has already been decided. Both can be called community engagement, but only one changes the outcome. I try to run the kind that changes the outcome, because projects shaped by the people who will use them tend to be better…
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Bringing Downtown Streets Back to Life
A downtown is more than a collection of buildings. It is the street between them. When that street is comfortable to walk, easy to cross, and pleasant to linger on, the shops and restaurants along it have a fighting chance. When the street is built only to move cars through quickly, the businesses are left…
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Housing Near Transit and Jobs: Planning for Places People Can Reach
Where housing sits shapes daily life more than almost any other planning decision. A home placed near transit and jobs gives a household real choices about how to get around and how much of its income goes to driving. A home placed far from both locks in a long commute and a car payment whether…
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Building Park and Trail Networks That Stay Welcoming
A trail or a park is easy to celebrate on opening day. The harder test comes in the years that follow, when the budget moves on to the next project and the place has to hold up on its own. Too many good spaces decline not because they were poorly designed, but because no one…
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Grant Stacking: How Smaller Cities Fund Bigger Improvements
Mid-sized cities rarely have a single fund large enough to cover a meaningful project. What they have instead is access to many smaller sources, each with its own rules, timeline, and eligible costs. Grant stacking is the practice of combining those sources into one funded project. Done well, it is how a city with a…
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Quick-Build Projects: Testing Street Designs Before You Pour Concrete
A permanent street redesign is expensive and slow to undo. That is a strong argument for trying ideas at low cost first. Quick-build projects use paint, flexible posts, planters, and temporary materials to test a design in the real world before anyone commits to curbs and concrete. I lean on this approach often, because it…
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How Mid-Sized Cities Actually Get Projects Built
The hardest part of planning is rarely the idea. Most cities I work with already have a good sense of what they want, whether that is a safer downtown street, a connected trail, or housing closer to jobs. The harder part is carrying that idea through review, funding, permitting, and construction without losing the thread…