Urban Design
This concept refers to a city where residents can access work, shops, and recreation within a 15-minute walk or bike ride.
What is the 15-minute city?
This term describes a bus system designed to offer faster service with fewer stops, often with features like off-board fare collection.
What is Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)?
About 75% of residential area in the United States is zoned for this type of housing:
What are Single-Family homes/residences?
These roofs are covered with vegetation and provide insulation.
What are green roofs?
This city boasts the first ever Motel.
What is San Luis Obispo?
This urban design element encourages public interaction and informal gathering.
What is a plaza or public square?
This American city's cable cars have been running since the 1870s and are a National Historic Landmark.
What is San Francisco?
In the past decade, there has been a growing effort to remove this zoning law, which has contributed greatly to urban sprawl in cities. (hint: The late and great Donald Shoup advocated for this.)
What are Parking Minimums?
Urban areas that experience significantly higher temperatures than surrounding areas are said to suffer from this effect.
What is the urban heat island effect?
This city is a hub for wine, olive oil, and cowboy culture.
What is Paso Robles?
This city had to create a “skyscraper setback” zoning law in 1916 that mandated tall buildings to step back as they rose so that sunlight could reach the street.
What is Manhattan?
Known for its scenic mountain routes, this Amtrak train runs between Chicago and Emeryville, California.
What is the California Zephyr?
This tool allows developers to build denser housing in exchange for providing affordable units or public benefits.
What is inclusionary zoning or a density bonus?
This road material allows rainwater to soak through, reducing runoff.
What is permeable pavement?
This harbor town is the site of the first landing of Filipinos in the Continental United States.
What is Morro Bay?
This Danish urban designer is famous for his work on human-centered cities and wrote Cities for People
Who is Jan Gehl?
This city once had the largest urban rail network in the world, with an extensive street car network that covered more distance than NYC’s subway system today.
What is the City of Los Angeles?
This city was the first in the United States to fully eliminate Single-Family Zoning.
What is Minneapolis, MN?
This 1970 California law requires state and local agencies to identify the significant environmental impacts of their actions and to avoid or mitigate those impacts if feasible.
What is the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA)?
This SLO county city’s downtown is known as “The Village.”
What is Arroyo Grande?
This infamous public housing project was demolished less than 20 years after its construction due to poor maintenance, underfunding, and segregation policies.
What is Pruitt-Igoe?
This approach to street infrastructure design has been mandated by California since 2008, with the passing of AB 1358 (aka The [answer] Act).
What are Complete Streets?
This U.S. city does not have zoning — instead, development is governed by ordinance codes that address how property can be subdivided. The City codes do not address land use.
What is Houston, TX?
LEED certification is administered by this organization.
What is the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC)?
This inland city was founded in 1913 as a “utopian” planned colony, with meticulously subdivided plots of land for an anticipated 30,000 residents.
What is Atascadero?