Articles provided by wck planning and articles by others discuss a wide variety of issues and opportunities facing small cities and towns. Ideas matter and history helps with practical and conceptual ideas and information about cities, city planning and city-building. The Articles gallery of CharacterTowns.org presents papers that discuss issues and opportunities for those thinking and doing city-building.
Worry Less About Crumbling Roads, More About Crumbling Libraries. Character towns rely on social infrastructure. America’s social infrastructure is falling […]
The Issue Character towns and small cities can prevent and reduce plastics in their waste stream. Plastics have enriched us
Character towns have small city and town main streets that leverage vision-driven assets for societal benefits. Think of your children’s
MAIN STREET “THIRD PLACES” WHERE PEOPLE MEET CASUALLY, IN A PLEASANT SETTING. Downtown parks and plazas are ideal “third places”.
The design and content of nine Central Florida’s Character Main Streets reveals important attributes that entitles these small cities to
Make “Special Districts” Special. A downtown district, as a legal and geographically specific entity has the opportunity to control its
Character towns view City hall as the downtown icon. Downtown doesn’t seem like downtown without a visible city hall, especially
The place where commercial, civic and residential lives converge. Downtown’s focus is main street; the street with public buildings, gathering
The Thing about Commercial “Strips”. Prevailing conditions. First, let’s be clear about our subject. The corridors of which we speak areroadways
A Coherent Picture of the Future. The United States has always had a strategy for defining and advancing America’s interests based