Walk out in front of a car speeding at 40 mph to find out whether you experience death or just a lifetime of suffering with permanent injuries.

On the other side of recent architecture passings of Leon Krier and Robert AM Stern, I just saw where Frank Gehry joined the list today.

“What can cities do to recover from this great planning disaster? Here are three reforms that can help. First, remove off-street parking requirements. Second, charge market-rate prices for on-street parking. Third, invest the resulting meter revenue to improve public services on the metered blocks.“

If a parking spot is empty on Black Friday, it never needed to be built in the first place. Today is an opportunity to document the physical footprint of excessive parking requirements while you happen to be out shopping.

45 years ago this afternoon I took a mystery home with me that forever changed so much, including my career: originalgreen.org/blog/mystery... Never leave a mystery behind.

Wanna go on a mission today that's beyond just shopping? Take the Black Friday Challenge and change your town! Here's how: originalgreen.org/blog/the-bla...

This is the founding principle of the modern suburb.

You gotta pay more for houses with walkability because we don't build nearly enough of them... Walkability shouldn't be a "perk" It should be the default

Here's what happened on our spooky Urban Guild Summit "afterparty" lost in the mountains: originalgreen.org/blog/right-r...

A second-level balcony on a mixed-use building helps shield residents of upper levels from the lights of the sidewalk level, helping those who are actually sleeping at night in the French Quarter.

It’s hard to tell whether the post lamp was deformed by flying hurricane debris or by humans to accentuate the branding of the French Quarter, but twisted lamps like this are on countless T-shirts tourists take home.

The French Quarter masterfully mixes uses. In this building, there’s a shop to the left and the arch to the right leads to a courtyard accessing multiple apartments behind and above the front; a good Missing Middle Housing Commercial Apartment Block.

Outdoor space tends to expand closer to the street, with individual balconies above, a full and deeper balcony on the middle level and the full extent of the city accessible from doors on the street.

Humbler materials have their places on a street, like the utility brick on the right building accentuating the refinement of the front and the roof tiles used ornamentally in the balustrade of the left building.

Never end a building face with the side wall material coming all the way to the corner because it makes the front look pasted-on. At the VERY least, turn the cornice and front wall material at least a little bit like this, if not further.

It’s quite appropriate for a product strongly associated with a place, like Tabasco in the French Quarter, to have its own storefront, as visitors tend to “extend the stay” by taking culinary things home with them.

It is natural, even if not essential, for the first level of a building to be clad in a different material than levels above. In a mixed-use quarter like much of the French Quarter, it calls attention to the street-level businesses, among other benefits.

Placing a balcony on a chamfered corner takes advantage of a rare opportunity in urbanism: the ability to look down all four streets of the intersection from one vantage point.

It’s great when food and beverage establishments open important locations like a street corner window to the sidewalk on all but the more extreme days of the year; it invites people in and helps condition them to Live In Season.

It is sometimes assumed that the most important civic buildings should express only the highest ideals of a civilization, but the Louisiana Supreme Court building subtly reflects its French Quarter home with its metalwork.

The Louisiana Supreme Court building is clad in stone in a highly refined manner, as all important civic buildings should be, as they should communicate their importance to both residents and visitors.

This should be easy in Mac Pages, but is there a way to have sections within a document come up as tabs at the top of the window, like tabs on a website?

I'll be speaking at International Making Cities Livable 62 in Potsdam next month; any recommendations for great German towns to photograph in the Berlin region?

Almost exactly 7 years after moving to Tuscaloosa I have done something. I’ve never done before: walk to Northport. It’s terrifying along a bridge with knee-high handrails and fast industrial traffic. I’m not sure I ever want to do this again!

What a textbook case of classical composition, from head to foot and with refinements at every point! Someone well-versed in classical architecture could easily do an hour-long lecture on this image, if not longer.

Two very different ways of joining columns to beams from more vernacular on the left to highly classical on the right. The wrought iron column and beam panels are nearly identical while the classical elements do specific jobs in more varied ways.

This most refined French Quarter building is clad with a material that really needs to make a comeback: glazed terra cotta. It’s super-durable, able to be crisply shaped, and able to take on pretty much any shape required.

New Orleans’ French Quarter is filled with Missing Middle Housing, both Core and Upper, such as this Commercial Apartment Block with businesses at street level and apartments above. Look around; the wealth of types may astound you.

Most of the NOLA French Quarter is 2-3 stories and quite vernacular, but this one exceeds 10 stories and is beautifully refined in exchange for the added mass. YIMBYs making the same exchange might get more units built.

Solid shutters are more secure at street level, but louvered shutters above allow ventilation and filtered light when the shutters are shut but the openings (doors in this case, or windows) are open behind them.

Porch and gallery stairs are frequent on the Gulf Coast, especially when multiple levels are part of the same property. Whether intentional or not, enticing people outdoors helps them Live in Season, reducing AC usage: originalgreen.org/blog/living-...

Here’s a building composition thing I’ve noticed but can’t explain: in places with a strong Anglo tradition, there must always be a center bay open but French traditions have no problem with an even number of bays, like everything here except the centered street door. Ideas?

Multi-level galleries where planting is both allowed by regulation and encouraged by local culture creates a Green Envelope both for the outdoor rooms on the galleries and on the street itself, making everything in sight cooler, both in temperature and in vibe.

The nighttime economy can be highly profitable but messy, including remnants of "human impromptu detox" in the streets. New Orleans does a much better job cleaning the streets in early mornings than they did a few decades ago. Washed streets are now a common early-morning sight.

It’s early on Bourbon Street, and so deserted at this hour, but this pair of street-corner galleries will be hopping by afternoon, fueled in part by people engaging across the street not only at sidewalk level but also at gallery level.

Amid the LED signage takeover, don’t forget neon. It has lots of heart and will feel like something made by the Vernacular Mind compared to the LED attempted perfection.

ICYMI Yesterday, I released this gem of a conversation about the history of protected bike lanes and intersections in the USA and the leveraging of Dutch designs in North America with @mobycon.bsky.social’s Nick Falbo. Available now in audio-only and video formats www.activetowns.org/2025/09/04/a...

Early in the morning after French Quarter streets have been washed of last night’s revelry, things that move in a slight breeze like the flags and the plants on this gallery activate the scene even if nobody except early-morning photographers like me are there to see it yet.

Pharmacies are essential in the 15-Minute City. Most of what they sell is fairly lightweight, so they don't have to be right next door. If it's a full 15-minute walk, it's unlikely to be a physical challenge.

A question: almost all of the Pontalba Buildings are handsomely detailed, but there's a "messy zone" underneath the second level gallery with pipes, lights, and such that didn't exist when the buildings were built. Is this OK? Or if not, what would you do?

Here are both ends of the Vernacular-Classical Spectrum of the French Quarter in one image. On the left, the simple stuccoed masonry buildings with thin metal gallery & balcony detailing that makes up the bulk of the fabric buildings overlaid on highly classical building beyond.

The Pontalba Buildings, built around 1850, contained the first apartments in the French Quarter on the upper two levels and the first dedicated business space on the street level.

The Pontalba Buildings frame two sides of Jackson Square and house apartments on the upper levels and commercial spaces at the sidewalk. Highly repetitive while handsomely detailed, they make no attempt to compete with the St. Louis Cathedral, the Cabildo, or the Presbytere.

The warm glow of morning's first sunlight just kissing the tops of buildings is a magical time to be shooting.

Street design in the French Quarter breaks every rule of transportation engineering. This curb radius is about 6', and the gallery columns are about 6" from the street. It's important to study seemingly impossible things & ask "why does this work?" & "are the rules wrong?"

A storefront bay doesn't just light the sidewalk in front of it, but acts as a lantern, casting light each way down the sidewalk, enhancing Walk Appeal.

It would have been far better to have these two light bulbs inside the store, illuminating the interior and the things for sale there, which also provides security. Glow from inside the store is better than glare of bare bulbs outside.

Most French Quarter galleries are supported by unusually thin steel columns. They've weathered many hurricanes and annual Mardi Gras crowds doubtless over their live load ratings. Today, engineers want to use pipe twice as large or more. Why?

This scene has serious "heart," born of time, love, and imperfections. Many challenge new places for having little of these characteristics, but give them time. Some places try to enforce perfection forever, but this prevents patina which people love.

Gallery-to-gallery on these buildings is 20 feet. Using sprawl street design standards for just a local street plus setbacks it would be 4x as wide. The French Quarter would be impossible using these standards. Why ban places we love & require those that bore us & even kill us?