Community and Neighborhoods – The Urbanist Dispatch

Dubai’s Bastakiya Quarter: An Early Example of Planning for Climate and Modesty

February 27, 2015

When most people think of Dubai, the largest city in the United Arab Emirates, they think of a glitzy city with futuristic-looking high-rise buildings, high-end shopping, luxury hotels and nightlife, along pris...

Once a trend, creative church reuse is now a modern tradition in Pittsburgh

Caroline Gerdes

January 28, 2015

Community and Neighborhoods

Like many Pittsburgh churches before it, Immanuel Methodist Church on the North Side is about to see a new type of congregation. Instead of setting sanctuary for a religious flock, the closed church building an...

When Rebuilding a Town is a Vital Option

Natalia Fernández

November 8, 2014

Community and Neighborhoods

If swamps could speak, their words would transport us to a 1950s rural Spain where it was decided that hundreds of villages would be evacuated in order to implement a “National Hydrographic Plan” that included ...

Why the Future Of Art is on City Streets

Tere Garcia

November 7, 2014

Community and Neighborhoods, Culture

Violence rates have increased markedly in Caracas, Venezuela. This ranks the city among the top five most dangerous in the world, not only for high homicide rates, robberies and kidnappings, but the hostility a...

Kyle Ezell, Principal Designing Local, Ltd.

Beware of Widgets – The Case for Designing Local

Liz Hayden

August 28, 2014

Community and Neighborhoods, Economic Development

Kyle Ezell, City and Regional Planning professor at Ohio State University, has recently written Designing Local: Revealing Our Truest Communities, which encourages urban planners and communities to move beyond ...

Venture House Vision: Rehab Vacant Homes For Entrepreneurs, Artists

Janan Talafer

August 18, 2014

Community and Neighborhoods

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It's a dilemma faced by many cities across the country – hundreds of empty, boarded-up or neglected homes, many in foreclosure. The houses are eyesores, they decrease property values for the neighborhood and th...

Vander Ende-Onderdonk House. Photo by SReed99342 on Flickr.

Good Neighbors

Melissa Mahony

August 13, 2014

Community and Neighborhoods

The walk from the subway to my house in an industrial neighborhood on the border of Brooklyn and Queens is rarely pleasant. Big rigs noisily block intersections; delivery vans parked helter-skelter on the sidew...

Close up of freshly built comb. Photo by Ironbee Collective on Flickr.

What’s the Buzz? How Honeybees Help Shape Urban Farming

Rachael Gilliland

August 11, 2014

Community and Neighborhoods, Culture, Featured, Sustainability

As consumers, we don’t always know where our food sources come from, or what helps supply it. As of late, the plight of the honeybee has lead to an influx of interest in what is happening in the bee world. To c...

Housing on Spencers Road, West Green. Photo by @pics-by-mpd on Flickr.

The state of the UK’s Housing Market

Luke Peters

August 6, 2014

Community and Neighborhoods

The British economy has exceeded the level it was at before 2007, when the first signs of the financial crisis reared its ugly head. It has been a struggle for many people to keep their heads above water during...

Inside Rainbow Mansion coliving community: Alexander Van Dijk

11 Affordable Housing Alternatives for City Dwellers

Cat Johnson

July 30, 2014

Community and Neighborhoods

After World War II, white, middle-class Americans flocked to the suburbs from the city. Today, that trend is reversing. As post-suburbanites move back into cities, escalating housing costs are forcing low and m...