It's (Maybe) New To You! Our Most Popular Posts of 2018!
Happiest of holidays from the State of Place Team! We hope you've been enjoying time with family and friends and got everything your heart desired this holiday season. But, just in case(s), here’s our special (re)gift to you - our FOUR most popular posts of 2018. And yes, regifting is now totally ok, so, we good! ;)
Ten Things You Need to Know about Catalytic Development. You all LOVED our TLDR guide highlighting the 10 things you need to know about Catalytic Development, summarizing a Brookings Institute report co-authored by Chris Leinberger (my very own co-author on our own Brookings piece, Walk this Way). Learn about this new planning and real estate model, which intends to jump-start redevelopment in languishing urban areas using a more place-based approach (yay for that!).
A Moveable Feast Indeed. Our tribute to Anthony Bourdain, consummate place-lover…”Our tribute to Anthony Bourdain, the consummate Seeker and place-oholic: “Bourdain had a magical, hypnotizing ability to not just transcendently capture [the "intersection" between food, place, and people] but to exploit it to show us something deeper in ourselves, to inspire empathy for "the other," to connect us to communities far afield and familiar alike, to deliver unto us a sense of place(s), to embolden us to seek out and relish the unknown, to find joy in the simplicity of food - and the human experience.”
Your Absolutely Essential Everything You Need to Know about Vision Zero Guide. We’ve done SEVEN posts about Vision Zero as part of our Design for Our Live series - and seems like many of you are just as passionate as we are about saving lives through urban design! Our roundup about the country’s 35 official Vision Zero cities, chock full of helpful stats and visualizations was the most popular of the series - and our third most popular post of 2018. Check it out and while you’re at it, check out our post that quantifies exactly how urban design makes streets safer and reduces the odds of a collision!
On My Own (Two Feet). As honorable mention, we absolutely LOVE that our fourth most read blog of the year is one written by our 18-year old intern about his love affair with his hometown neighborhood, Brookline - and how its walkability fostered a sense of independence that shaped his childhood. Please re-read this endearingly refreshing post about the benefits of growing up in a walkable neighborhood - and new parents in search of housing, we URGE you to consider walkability (and not just school quality) in your search - the built environment where your children grow up is just as important (or even more so) than the quality of the school district.
Hope you’re enjoying this holiday season and hope to have the honor of helping you get awesome places people love done in 2019! In the meantime, if you’re itching to get a head start on your new year’s resolutions to make your city or development more walkable, livable, safe, and sustainable, check out the video below to see how we help citymakers use data to make the investment case for better places (to get approvals, funding, andy buy-in faster) and identify the best urban design changes most likely to help you achieve your goals (while maximizing the bang for your buck!) . Or, just simply book a demo with us or get started right away with a free State of Place trial!
