Nicholas Boys Smith makes the case for gentle density Why, asked Evening Standard Property Editor, Prudence Ivey, in a recent article should we build more Georgian terraces? Isn’t it just backward looking and faintly low status? Who would want to be that? So why should we? Let’s examine the reasons. First of all, people like […]
Nicholas Boys Smith reflects on the important international lessons of the Strong Towns movement. On Monday 9 October 2023, the Create Streets team were lucky enough to be able to host breakfast for Charles Marohn, president and co-founder of the American charity, Strong Towns. We were also joined by some excellent developers, officials, architects and […]
Nicholas Boys Smith reflects on the future for Euston Station. How do we fall back in love with the future? How do we build bridges and stations in years not decades? How can we recreate a culture which says, “crack on “not “stop there”? How do we move forward without squandering precious energy upon buildings […]
Thoughts on Greening Up large sites from Berkeley Group’s CEO Rob Perrins A bird’s eye view of our towns and cities reveals the degraded state of nature within today’s urban landscapes. Street trees, greens and ponds have been lost, squeezed, damaged and fragmented. And urban communities now suffer nature’s absence in a multitude of ways. […]
This article by John Massengale is reprinted with permission from New York Daily News. The powers-that-be at Pennsylvania Station have new ideas about the future of the important gateway to New York. But look at what they do rather than what they say. When you go down the escalator between the NJTransit hub and the Long Island […]
Britain’s architectural landscape offers much to celebrate, but it is in a fragile state and, even if the prognosis may be improving, its future health cannot be taken for granted. We face a choice as to which way we move forward with the new development our growing population needs. On the one hand there is […]
Growing up in New York City, I took for granted the vibrancy and community that results from dense, walkable neighborhoods, beautiful mixed-use buildings, and effective public transport. As a young adult, I resented the rarity of these features in other American places and found a similarly rich urban life in London. In mid-May, eager to […]
Gentle density in the best tradition of Cambridge. Create Streets Create Streets fellow, Samuel Hughes, reviews today’s announcement on Cambridge development… One of Britain’s familiar problems is a failure to build homes and laboratory space in Cambridge. As everyone knows, Cambridge leads the world in many research fields, and this research generates huge numbers of […]
There was nothing wrong with Pavilion Road ten years ago, a mews just off Sloane Square. On the other hand, there was little assertively right about it: a potpourri of converted Victorian stables, parked cars, crude tarmac and some charmless but inoffensive 1960s flats. PG Wodehouse once wrote of a similar (fictional) street off Leicester […]
A note on our winning street by Create Streets Director, Nicholas Boys Smith Streets have this habit of hanging about, the most ancient and timeless features of our urban infrastructure. However, Peter Pan-like, they are also forever young. For whereas their routes may be their original routes, the actual experience of moving down them is […]