Mark Hinshaw

The New York Times recently featured a development project in the Phoenix, Arizona metropolitan area that claims it will be car-free. Its future 1000 residents will be provided with...

One friend in the Italian countryside represents the generation that feels like their formative years of socializing and dating are being stunted. He may put on smiling face but he is noticeably distraught.

People know that shopping locally helps their neighbors and their families. So shop they do, have friendly conversations, share latest news, and perhaps chat about an upcoming festival. Making purchases isn’t just a commercial transaction – an exchange of money for goods or services. Its about reaffirming your connections with other people.

The Post Office is not only a great institution of democracy, it is a great leveler, a place where human interaction is polite and measured.

The city government could buy up leases for empty storefronts and then market them at low rates to non-profits and small retail shops.

I did not think it possible to go to Rome and not once hear English spoken. Yet, on a recent trip over several days, we heard nothing but Italian. It...

In my career as an architect, urban planner and urban designer I spent decades talking about the merits of mixing uses together . But now I see this through a new lens.

I have been taken by how everyone in the village seems to still be enjoying the public spaces. They are just doing this while being mindful of the safety of others. This attitude of collective responsibility is what we most noticed when we first arrived.

What is really happening is that we have been given a rare chance to experience – live, in person – a change that used to happen once in every generation or two – a massive shift in living patterns, in technology, in social life. When there is a sudden and unexpected shift in human life -- whether personal or cultural – some people choose to reflect; others choose to re-invent themselves or the institutions around them.

One can sense a collective sigh of relief that we may have beaten this awful thing.