Blog

FBCI Symposium Will Explore How Cities Can Be Redeveloped to Improve Public Health

Most of us know that a healthy lifestyle involves eating high-quality, nutritious food, getting regular exercise and plenty of rest, reducing stress and living in surroundings that lift the spirits. Unfortunately, typical American lifestyles often make it logistically — and in some cases, financially — difficult to maintain such a lifestyle. Many of us spend […]

Practical Idealism: FBCs as the Framework for Building Sustainable Places

[wds id=”1″] Great cities, towns and neighborhoods do not develop by trial and error. Rather, their growth is guided by the community vision of those who live and work there. This view underlies the work of Geoff Ferrell and Mary Madden, principals of the Washington, D.C.-based urban design and town planning firm Ferrell Madden, who […]

FBCI Book Review: Zoned in the USA

Form-based codes are a big improvement over conventional zoning, but that’s a hard argument to make if advocates have a poor understanding of zoning and its history. Zoning is one of the least understood undercurrents shaping our world and experience. As affordable housing is increasingly out of reach for many Americans and the planet heats […]

New Research on Signs Within a Walkable Street Environment by Roger Eastman

The Signage Foundation, a research organization based in Washington, D.C., is partnering with faculty and graduate students at Michigan State University on a research project that focuses on signage, urban design and form-based codes. This project is in its early stages; the research team has completed a literature review and is starting to conduct field […]

Bringing User-Friendly Spaces to Costa Rica Requires Working with What Is and What Can Be

What’s the best way to introduce the first form-based code in an entire country? A team led by architect and urban planner Eduardo Castillo Cortés took a micro approach, devising an FBC that would be implemented initially in only one of the four districts that make up the small city of Curridabat, Costa Rica. Located […]

A Message From Our Chairperson

Greetings! In this column, I want to focus on how the built environment affects health and, specifically, the health and wellbeing of older Americans. The current growth of the population ages 65 and older is one of the most significant demographic trends in U.S. history. Although the aging population has received academic and media attention for […]

Voting with Their Feet: Study Tracks the Growing Popularity of Walkable Urban Metro Areas

Walkable urban places (WalkUPs) have sprouted up in all 30 of the nation’s largest metropolitan areas and increasingly are sought after, supported and promoted by businesses and the public and for good reason. These metro areas, which host 619 regionally significant WalkUPs, attract a well-educated and wealthy workforce and command higher business and residential rents […]

Leading from in Front and from Behind: Opticos Design Uses a Grassroots Approach to Improve Urban Planning

“When listeners become leaders, the world changes.” –Rev. Kellen Roggenbuck Traditionally, U.S. cities and towns are planned and designed by urban planners, architects and local government officials without much input from future or even current residents. The approach is a prescriptive one that is designed to regulate — and at its worst, dictate — where […]

Form-Based Codes Create Communities Where Residents Can Comfortably Age in Place

What type of community do you want to live in once you reach retirement age? Although many seniors have opted in the past to move to warm-weather locations or retirement villages, an increasing number are not interested in relocating. According to a 2014 report by AARP, a national nonprofit organization that seeks to improve people’s […]

2016 Driehaus Award Winning FBCs Reflect the Unique Character, Aspirations of the Cities They Help to Reshape

Last June, FBCI presented the 2016 Driehaus Form-Based Code Award to Delray Beach, Fla., and Lacey, Wash., and gave honorable mention to Thompson’s Landing, Tenn., to acknowledge their development, adoption and implementation of innovative and effective form-based codes. This year’s honorees represent a diverse group of communities. One is a beach town that […]