CNU 20 Voices
CNU 20 Voices is a collection of blog posts, videos, pictures, and more from engaged minds behind CNU 20. What are the forces behind the ideas being explored at CNU 20? What makes West Palm Beach the perfect place to host CNU 20? How will CNU 20 tackle the most pressing urbanist issues of the day, and what positions CNU as the best venue for doing so? Come back to this page often as answers to these questions appear, and to check the latest as CNU 20 unfolds.
The Live #CNU 20 Twitter Feed
Watch the Transformation on the Historic 1916 Palm Beach County Courthouse
Former CNU Executive Director Peter Katz looks back at CNU at 20 in a three-part series for Better! Cities and Towns. Read Part One, Part Two, and Part Three of Katz's article.
Journalist Chris Turner of Mother Nature Network writes how "Next month, a broad cross-section of America’s (and the world’s) best urban planners, designers, thinkers and doers will be gathering in West Palm Beach for the 20th annual Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU20)." Read the whole article here and start packing for West Palm Beach.
Next American City is a media partner for CNU 20! Leading up to the Congress in May, they will be conducting a series of interviews with CNU leaders, thinkers and scheduled speakers. Click through to read their first post, an interview with CNU Board member and Retrofitting Suburbia author Ellen Dunham-Jones at www.americancity.org/buzz/entry/3363.
CNU Board Chair Victor Dover travels the streets of Laventille, Trinidad, exploring their rich musical heritage and "renewed effort to build walkability, equity, opportunity and sustainability into the fabric of neighborhoods." As Dover states, "that's New Urbanism," and those topics are at the heart of this year's International Track.
James Howard Kunstler points out how badly CNU is needed in Florida, as evidenced by this "Family Fun Walk" planned on a nine-lane road: 
Dan Burden, aka "The Walking Doc," and Town Planner Ramon Trias make their pitch for why CNU 20 will be the best Congress yet.
Guest Blog by Dan Burden, Executive Director of The Walkable and Livable Communities Institute (WALC)
West Palm Beach will pump inspiration your way for years if you take part in CNU 20; but one set of visions that will become etched in memory and stand out the most will be at your feet. I wish to highlight the region as the center for re-inventing livability, walkability and living in place. This area has some of the greatest remakes anywhere. The area is known to Floridians as the Treasure Coast. But aside from the image of pirates and others diving for sunken ships of gold, this region is not only Florida's, but one of the nation's treasure troves, rich with discovery of the town maker's gold.
Florida is the bellwether state for many movements, especially aging, but the transformations of this city and the incremental advances of the much greater region (Lake Worth, Ft Pierce, Delray Beach, Boca Raton among them) direct the vast movement away from auto-dependency to traditional town-making, town-living, well-being and health.
If we are to have a nation that has people able to live in place -- and we must -- it is this region that is showing us the way to build that environment. It is the mega-region where new urbanism cut its teeth and learned to stand on two feet. It is where hard fought battles with a state DOT were won, one project at a time. It is where neighborhood leadership and civic engagement blossomed.
West Palm Beach's downtown alone dropped 17 of its traffic lanes as it went from a frightening heap of rubble and traffic noise in 1992 to one of the freshest, most lively, quiet and peaceful of remade towns. Traffic engineers lined up to describe this lane removal proposal as total folly. "More lanes!!!" they screamed, pointing to their data points and data sets. They pitched with their incorrigible, un-retractable science that it would be necessary to lay much more asphalt to reinvent this downtown. They wanted to further undo place. But their numbers and approach was proven wrong. Very wrong. Many streets in the region dropped their lanes and girth, and through this process, place was created and the town's people created thriving businesses and healthy lives.
This is not one story; it is many. It is also a rich, dynamic, complex learning place in town-making. It is the proving ground of beauty, of revival, of caring for an older, diverse population while welcoming the young. Yes, in all places you can still drive, but more and more, people are finding these towns and this region to be the destination, not the drive-thru.
Come see for yourselves, and bring your best walking shoes, your cameras, and your eagerness for adventure and discovery. West Palm Beach is a place you will never forget.
