Tag Archives: urbanplanning


Tidbits and Events, Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character


Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character provides a catalog of techniques that emphasize “bottom up,” resident-based input. Such input includes local history, building forms, natural and open spaces, cultural assets and tradition, and related policy, planning, and regulatory examples. Here’s a 27 March update on developments and release events for the book. The […]

First Comes ‘Place-Receiving’


Is there a predicate to “placemaking” where a place is analyzed and mastered? Is that process of immersion, which I so love to emphasize, part of the placemaking process, or should it be called something else? To many, the question poses a distinction without a difference. Nonetheless, in talking about […]

Place Parts, Episode 14: Towards Hints of Resilience in Pandemica


When Sustaining Place began late last Spring, I wrote several pieces about the emergence phases from the first English lockdown. There are parallels today, as the third lockdown begins to unwind. I wanted to revisit hints of resilience through a video essay on the changes to the commercial fabric of […]

Place Parts, Episode 13: Will the Technology Campus Sustain?


Today, we pose questions based on Vodaphone’s world headquarters in Newbury (and the “Shaw Valley” housing development next door). Post-pandemic, will what is now empty–or under construction–remain? As Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character implies, these questions don’t have ready answers. They require careful assessment and review of corporate productivity […]

Place Parts, Episode 11: Book Launch Summit, with Tigran Haas


Today, we celebrate Book Launch Day for Sustaining a City’s Culture and Character. This book focuses on the culture and character of one city compared to another, how we distinguish and change urban places, and the actors involved. Please join collaborator Dr. Tigran Haas and me as we discuss the […]