Blog

Did you miss the conference in Santa Fe but wish you could still read the papers and view the slideshows? Perhaps you attended the conference but didn't get a chance to see all the presentations and wish you could fill in the gaps. In either case, the eConference is your ticket!

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard

To be successful, a neighborhood square must be designed for people. It must feel like the community’s living room -  lively, safe, comfortable and hospitable. It must facilitate social interaction and foster a sense of community identity. To achieve these goals, enclosure, sunlight and shade, protection from inclement weather, and from noise, danger and pollution are essential factors.

Every day, there are people who leave their home and feel unsafe in the world. They experience inescapable threats to their lives and livelihood from the system that has been built up around them, forced to move through spaces that feel at best uninviting and at worst mortally dangerous. These people are not abstractions. They are your friends and your neighbors, members of your community, your loved ones.

By Suzanne H. Crowhurst Lennard

At the crossing of pedestrian ways
A neighborhood square must be located at the central crossing point of a network of interconnected pedestrian routes through the neighborhood. As local residents walk through the square on their way to work, school, shopping, running errands, or to catch transit to the city center, their paths cross, affording the chance for a greeting or extended conversation. When people pass each other on a regular basis in the same place, the “stranger” becomes a “familiar”, and gradually the “familiar” may become a friend, or member of one’s circle.