Start here · Essential guide
Revitalizing Downtown Areas: A Guide to Urban Development
A beginner's guide to downtown development: how land use, access, housing, jobs and public space fit together, and why no single piece works alone.
Streets and Public Spaces
Downtown Revitalization
Bringing central business areas back to life with a balanced mix of uses.
Revamping the City Center: Urban Renewal Projects
A look at the physical projects found in city centers, from plazas and street rebuilds to building upgrades, and how they are sequenced and paid for.
Revitalizing City Centers: Urban Renewal Strategies for Downtown Revitalization
How to think about a city center strategy: setting goals, choosing a balanced mix of uses, and measuring whether the center is actually recovering.
Revitalizing Downtown Areas through Urban Renewal
How urban renewal has been applied to downtowns over the past century, including its mixed record, common criticisms and the lessons planners drew from it.
Revitalizing Downtown Areas: Strategies for Success
Common factors that seem to help downtowns, such as many reasons to visit, steady management and patience, along with honest limits on what is actually known.
Revitalizing Downtown Areas: Strategies for Urban Renewal
A plain look at the public and private reinvestment tools used in downtowns, including incentives and improvement districts, and the trade-offs of each.
Revitalizing Downtown: Strategies for Attracting Businesses and Residents
Why downtown housing and a resident base matter to businesses, and how cities can attract both without pricing existing residents and shops out.
Revitalizing Downtown: Strategies for Urban Renewal
How to deal with empty storefronts and offices downtown: why vacancy happens, short-term fixes such as pop-ups, and longer-term repurposing options.
Revitalizing the City: Strategies for Urban Renewal
A municipal-level look at citywide renewal strategy: how to set priorities among districts, coordinate departments and balance competing demands for limited funds.
Revitalizing the Heart of the City: A Guide to Urban Renewal
A step-by-step orientation for renewing a central district: diagnosing problems, setting goals, listening to people and choosing sensible first projects.
Revitalizing the Heart of the City: Strategies for Urban Renewal
How land use, ownership and phasing choices shape a central district over many years, and why early decisions about parcels can matter for decades.
Revitalizing the Heart of the City: Urban Renewal Strategies for Downtown Revitalization
What goes into a written downtown plan: vision, market study, implementation steps and review, plus common pitfalls that leave plans on the shelf.
Revitalizing the Heart of the City: Urban Renewal Strategies for Success
How to judge whether a central-city renewal worked: realistic indicators, baselines, cautions about cause and effect, and attention to who benefited.
Urban Development and the Revitalization of Downtown Retail
How shops, services, dining and online competition shape downtown stores, and which retail approaches renewal efforts have tried, with honest limits.
Urban Renewal and the Revitalization of Downtown Areas
What a recovering central area typically looks like over time, including phases, setbacks and the measures commonly used to judge progress.
Urban Renewal and the Revitalization of Downtown Retail: A Case Study
A clearly labeled hypothetical composite showing how downtown shops, foot traffic and vacancy can shift during renewal, with caveats about what it can teach.
Related topics
More in streets and public spaces
Public Spaces Placemaking, design and art in plazas and parks. Livable Cities Design principles and strategies for pleasant places to live. Walkable Cities and Mobility Walking, sustainable transport and street design. Main Streets Reviving traditional commercial streets in towns and neighborhoods. Waterfront Redevelopment Turning city shorelines into open, working and resilient places. Mixed-Use Development Combining homes, shops and workplaces, and the density that supports them. Future of Cities Trends, technology and mobility shaping cities ahead. Public Art and Culture Art in public places and its role in renewal. Technology in Cities How digital tools and smart city ideas fit into planning, renewal and city services.