Dr. Salim Furth

"Diona’s mom gave her one week’s notice. There were too many kids and too little space. If 17-year-old Diona didn’t find someone to stay with, she would be forced to check herself and her 3-month-old son into a homeless shelter. Because she was a minor, doing so would put her baby ‘into the system’. She was determined not to let that happen."

Read the rest in Works In Progress

"The natural boundaries and the built environment of a place determine which social connections are feasible and which are attractive. Without an environment conducive to a fairly dense network of relationships, the social weave is thin, and the neighborhood remains weak. "

Read the rest in National Affairs

"Old Town Road traces a choppy, swerving path that marks the southern edge of Trumbull, Connecticut. It is shaded by maples and oaks that frame the sensible New England homes of an affluent suburb. Across the double yellow lines of Old Town Road are similar homes in the city of Bridgeport, one of the poorest places in Connecticut..."

Read the rest in American Affairs.

"It works because local governments encouraged modernization but never had enough funding to execute urban renewal. It works because otherwise strong property rights coexisted along with Land Readjustment. It works because the postwar US and Japanese authorities did not fully enforce their own edicts. It works because of the mini-kaihatsu loophole. It works because a very specific sequence of institutions rose and declined over a very eventful century, and none of them had the time, power, or money..."

Read the rest at Market Urbanism.