If you could transform your downtown into a more vibrant district with a single strategy, which approach would you pick? The right answer for dozens of communities is...A Major Expansion of Higher Education. This blog post represents what I believe to be the largest single collection of downtown revitalization examples driven by the expansion of universities. Special shout-out to all my LinkedIn friends who provided feedback on this topic :). Below are 20 examples of cities enjoying the … [Read more...]

Do you have empty spaces in your community? Do you have forgotten buildings and corridors in your city? Does your downtown have areas that are sorely underutilized, like alleys or similar spaces? Are there any former industrial areas in your community that are currently sitting vacant? Are there any other parts of your community that were once thriving, but now are no longer active? Does your city have unique assets that could be better leveraged to attract new businesses? I'm … [Read more...]

Earlier this year, the US Census Bureau released the population estimates for metro areas as of July 1, 2015. News outlets always pick up these data releases, but they tend to focus on the 1-year growth rates from 2014-2015. I’m more interested in the longer trend over the last several years. In this blog, I show you comparisons of growth rates from 2010 to 2015 for all 382 US metro areas. Because a single year is far less telling than a 5-year trend. To make the comparisons more meaningful, … [Read more...]

Are you interested in the latest trends impacting downtown revitalization? Is your community capitalizing on current opportunities to transform its urban core into a more vibrant place? ...Or is your community missing out on the wave of downtown development taking place in cities across the US? If you answered ‘yes’ to any of the questions above, you’ll want to read this blog post. This blog is based on a presentation I recently gave at the Downtown Eau Claire, Inc. Annual Awards … [Read more...]

The top party cities in the US are, in my opinion and not in order of priority: Austin Las Vegas Los Angeles Miami New Orleans New York I've been wanting to put this list out for debate for quite a while. I hope you enjoy it. And most of all, I hope this sparks some debate. These are by no means the only cities with a thriving nightlife, just the top 6 in my humble opinion. I couldn't go without doing a basic data analysis to explore the reality behind my claim (which you'll … [Read more...]

Last month (Sept. 14-16, 2015), I attended the Inner City Economic Summit in Detroit with Jeff Marcell, Senior Partner from our firm’s Seattle office. We spent the first part of the week in Detroit, engaging with leaders from other urban markets and national experts on the subject of inner city economies. Following the conference, we joined our clients at the East Michigan Council of Governments in Saginaw to share what we learned and to continue our work helping evaluate options for … [Read more...]

This blog post is for all of the data geeks. And for anyone who's ever wished for a single piece of data that accurately reflects a city's quality of place. There is one data point that does a better job of gauging the quality of place in any given city than anything I’ve come across. Want to know what it is? I'll tell you. But first, let me tell you the story of how I came to this realization. (If you simply can’t wait, you can skip down to find the answer highlighted in bold. But if you can … [Read more...]

A couple months back, Trulia came out with a shocking study that proclaimed Austin is the “most overvalued” housing market in the country. Now, Fitch, the big rating agency, has come out with their own report saying the same thing. I strongly considered writing a blog post when the Trulia article came out, but life got in the way. However, now that another major group has come out with the same opinion, I have no choice but to dispel the myth that Austin is in a housing bubble. And for … [Read more...]

And Why You Should Too (if you're a registered voter in Austin, TX) A week ago, I cast my early-vote ballot here in Austin. Just like many of you did (or will do today) in your own communities. Along with the typical laundry list of candidate selections (governor, state representatives, mayor, city council, school board, etc.) I also voted for Proposition 1, to authorize the City of Austin to spend $600 million on a new urban rail line. The rail line will travel 9.5 miles, connecting the … [Read more...]

I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that at least one item in this blog post will absolutely shock you. No, I’ll bet that several items in the following list will make your jaw drop. If you make it through the entire list of 23 shocking truths without so much as raising your eyebrow, please let me know. I want to know who you are…because you are obviously an even bigger urbanist-geek than I am. Prepare to be shocked! The average low temperature in January  in Lubbock, TX is colder … [Read more...]