Master Plan Educational Series

Placemaking as an Economic Development Tool

Also Recommended by Glenn Pape:

Ted Talk: "Retrofitting Suburbia" - By Ellen Durham-Jones

Can we rebuild our broken suburbs? Ellen Dunham-Jones shares a vision of dying malls rehabilitated, dead "big box" stores re-inhabited, and endless parking lots transformed into thriving wetlands.

Sprawl Repair Manual - By Galina Tachieva

The Sprawl Repair Manual draws on more than two decades of practical experience in the field of repairing and building communities to analyze the current pattern of sprawl development, disassemble it into its elemental components, and present a process for transforming them into human-scale, sustainable elements. The techniques are illustrated both two- and three-dimensionally, providing users with clear methodologies for the sprawl repair interventions, some of which are radical, but all of which will produce positive results.

Sprawl Retrofit Initiative - by CNU - Congress for the New Urbanism

Sprawl Retrofit, developed by CNU members, works to repair and retrofit sprawling developments into the vibrant, high-performing walkable places that are growing in popularity. In less than a decade, Sprawl Retrofit has demonstrated that rehabilitating traditional suburbs is achievable through existing policy and design approaches.

Sprawl Retrofit creates policy proposals, regulatory frameworks, databases of successes, and design toolkits to empower communities seeking to reclaim the lost potential of their paved-over land. Sprawl repair projects in Georgia, California, Maryland, Colorado, Massachusetts, Arizona, and countless other locations are already reshaping how citizens and elected officials look at their existing places and imagine their communities’ futures. In a time of converging economic, social, and environmental momentum with worldwide consequences, Sprawl Retrofit is setting a new global standard for how we incorporate our burdensome built legacy into a more sustainable future.