Getting out of the office at lunch time and visiting downtown retail shops and restaurants isn’t always convenient when the weather is too hot or too cold, or the distance too great, or in less-than-comfortable office attire.To help downtown employees get out despite the midday heat in Tempe, AZ, the Downtown Tempe Authority launched a…Continue reading
Parking garages take on new life In an effort to encourage owners of parking garages to activate their spaces during down times, the Cleveland Urban Design Collaborative created a pop-up rooftop performance venue at a downtown parking garage. “We were hoping owners would see that garages could be put to really good use during the…To read more — login/subscribe
In Millburn-Short Hills, NJ (est. pop. 21,699), Restaurant Week has turned into a springtime traffic driver. The event debuted in March 2023, then returned in March 2024. Restaurant Week is organized by Explore Millburn-Short Hills, a special improvement district, and involves some 40 restaurants and boutiques offering 60 specials. The offerings ranged from appetizers to…To read more — login/subscribe
Critics of free public parking once seemed to be kooky proponents of a fringe theory. Now, though, downtowns everywhere are reshaping their parking regulations. The new book Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World by Henry Grabar outlines the evolution of parking in America’s cities. He reports that the mass rethinking of parking originated with…To read more — login/subscribe
Roger Brooks relishes the opportunity to visit a downtown for the first time. By casting a fresh, critical eye on the business district, Brooks, a branding and tourism expert, can find many areas for improvement. Sometimes he spots a conspicuous lack of benches along downtown pathways and in public spaces. He might recommend sprucing up…To read more — login/subscribe
Embracing a newly popular strategy to improve traffic safety, San Francisco is moving forward with a ban on right turns during red lights downtown. While cities from Washington, DC, to Honolulu have cracked down on right turns on red, the concept isn’t popular everywhere. In Indianapolis, the issue has taken on a partisan bent —…To read more — login/subscribe
President Joe Biden has unveiled a policy designed to spur conversions of empty commercial buildings to residential use. The plan calls for public financing of office-to-residential projects, the sale of some federal properties, and targeted tax incentives. “Office and commercial vacancies across the country are affecting urban downtowns and rural main streets,” the White House…To read more — login/subscribe
City monitors waste, installs receptacles The Downtown Worcester Business Improvement District, marked a new phase of its placemaking and beautification action plan with the installation of dog waste stations and cigarette disposal receptacles. The initiative seeks to keep streets and sidewalks clean while bringing attention to important quality of life issues in the Massachusetts city.…To read more — login/subscribe
Downtowns nationwide are bedeviled by a glut of one type of real estate and a dearth of another. They have too much vacant retail space, and too little residential space. Larisa Ortiz, managing director of public non-profit solutions at design consultancy Streetsense, offers a contrarian perspective on how to resolve the imbalance. “There is an…To read more — login/subscribe
Workers in downtown Grand Rapids, MI (est. pop. 197,423), will plant thousands of flowers and shrubs this year along with hundreds of trees. The total budget is north of $300,000 — and downtown leaders say the investment is worth every penny. “It’s incredibly important for a lot of reasons,” says Melvin Eledge, director of operations…To read more — login/subscribe
