Month: January 2015

  • Citizen involvement shaping growth and development

    Citizen involvement shaping growth and development

    Communities have been in transition from the typical car-focused development known as urban sprawl to smart growth or compact, higher-density development that is now known as the preferred way to grow an urban downtown.  New development projects that include retail space, new housing and office space needs to be easy to walk to, close to transit, increase […]

  • Twenty Years: Revitalizing Downtown Ferndale

    Twenty Years: Revitalizing Downtown Ferndale

    In the December 2014 Ferndale Friends issue, I responded to questions about the 3-60 development project. My intent was to expand on that response here, but that intent evolved into answering my personal question “when DID Ferndale determine to build higher-density, mixed use office and residential in the downtown?”  Essentially, I “scoped creeped” my original post idea, […]

  • Borders of Opportunity

    Borders of Opportunity

    It’s time to finally shed the negative narrative of inner-ring municipal borders as dividers between Detroit and its border communities. The common narrative frame about suburbs and Detroit municipal borders typically focus on borders as physical and emotional dividers. Instead let’s reframe the municipal borders as positive opportunities that benefit everyone.  Detroit and the inner-ring […]