Consulting	Presentations	Contact	Bio-Sketch	Fee Schedule	Recognition
A Community Visioning Checklist
Ingredients for a Walkable Street			Ranking the Most Livable Cities

Walkable Streets

Timeless Design Services for Walkable Neighborhoods

Regulations, Plans, Speeches

Dom Nozzi, Executive Director

Walkable Streets specializes in preparing and amending plans, land development regulations, quality of life regulations and community design recommendations. The guiding principle of Walkable Streets is that a walkable street is the fundamental building block of a quality community. Indeed, the pedestrian is the design imperative.

Now more than ever, we need Walkable Streets to help us with…

The Obesity Epidemic

Peak Oil

Sustainability

Global Warming

Local Government Fiscal Health

Access, Affordability & Transportation Choice For All

Environmental Conservation

Urban Design Principles

Below you will find links to essays and organizations that are the basis of my work -- and the basis of my passion. My intent is to provide information and services that are useful in designing livable, sustainable, walkable, and equitable communities and neighborhoods--communities and neighborhoods we can take pride in.

Self-Authored Reports & Essays

Essays by Others

People/Organizations

Places

A Collection of Great Thoughts in Urban Design.

Fundamentals of a Good City.

Top Ten Best Urban Design Books.

Measuring Walkable Urbanity.

Recipe for Creating a Bicycle-Friendly City.

Dom’s Plan B Blog Site

In October 2003, the Greenwood Publishing Group published my book, "Road to Ruin." A press release about the book is available. For easy-to-read details about many of the views expressed on this web site, order your copy today.

If you would like to hire the services of Walkable Streets, or have questions, comments or suggestions about this site, send email to dom@walkablestreets.com

Dom Nozzi’s speech in Bloomington IN

This is a set of five videos on Google Video that, when combined, represents a speech I give throughout North America.

1. Road to Ruin: Congestion, Sprawl, Quality of Life, Part I

Transportation is Destiny

Dom Nozzi points out that big roads and big parking lots deliver sprawl and a downwardly spiraling quality of life. He illustrates the destructiveness of making cars happy instead of people. The tragic dilemma is that we live in a car dependent world, so we are trapped by a need to harm our communities to make cars happy. 12 minutes.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1155896531250408730&hl=en

2. Road to Ruin: Congestion, Sprawl, Quality of Life, Part II

Focus on Private Realm & Abandonment of the Public Realm

Dom Nozzi discusses the American over-emphasis on the private realm, and the cocooning and abandonment of the declining public realm. We cannot widen our way out of congestion. Congestion is self-regulating. 14 minutes.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7707217379522468890&hl=en

3. Road to Ruin: Congestion, Sprawl, Quality of Life, Part III

Congestion is our friend and the Gigantism Disease

Dom Nozzi discusses how in cities, traffic congestion is our friend. How the “gigantism disease” is killing cities. Cities tend to need LESS open space. Forgiving streets are less safe. Life safety is a more important focus than the more narrow fire safety. 14 minutes.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-808680495942452546&hl=en

4. Road to Ruin: Congestion, Sprawl, Quality of Life, Part IV

The keys to a better future.

Dom Nozzi discusses local government opposition to smart growth. He illustrates the tragedy of “cul-de-sac kids”. He notes the importance of “giving staff permission.” Is this our future? The key is to move back to the sustainable, walkable tradition of complete streets and mixed-use towns rich in housing and transportation choice. Interventions needed: road diets, traffic calming, place-making, mixed use, affordable housing, efficient parking, smart growth, and making people happy instead of cars. 18 minutes.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1099594631036206186&hl=en

5. Solving the downtown parking “problem.”

Dom Nozzi describes how to solve the downtown parking “problem.” Parking needs to be provided more efficiently and must be properly priced. The importance of unbundling parking cost from housing cost. The need for downtowns to leverage their strengths. 15 minutes.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-5029224235660662505&hl=en

Mr. Nozzi is available to make these and other customized presentations in your community. His fee is a sliding scale honorarium and travel expenses.

Seeking Employment in Urban Design & Community Planning

Mr. Nozzi, AICP, is an experienced, certified urban planner and designer with 21 years of public sector experience. He is currently seeking full-time, part-time, or contractual work as a planner or urban designer – either public sector or private sector. He can immediately help your organization in the following ways:

He is a smart growth, sustainable urbanism, quality of life, low-carbon, bicycle and walkable streets specialist. He is skilled in designing smart growth, compact and walkable development plans.
He is a public speaker and author regarding sprawl, congestion, and quality of life.
He can craft, calibrate & repair land development codes for smart growth, form-based coding, transects, walkable urbanity, context-sensitive design, code definitions, community indicators, and parking. He is skilled in reviewing and editing existing or proposed development regulations to ensure that they can be implemented by the in-house staff of the community.
He is skilled in establishing understandable, “Plain English,” graphics-based codes, consolidating overlays, and preparing presentations and plans. The over-riding objective of edits he suggests is to make documents, plans, reports, and land development codes more readable, accessible, and transparent to a general, non-professional audience. The editing of planning and urban design documents benefits from Mr. Nozzi’s expertise as an urban designer. He can therefore assist in providing substantive suggestions as well. A recent example of his work was in editing the draft Richmond VA Downtown Master Plan.
He is skilled in preparing long-range comprehensive plans, and preparing regulations for large-format retailers, electronic signs, creek setbacks, density bonus points, converting a conventional shopping center into a walkable town center, TNDs, an urban design toolbox, consolidation of overlays, bicycling, land use accessibility index, street connectivity, building height design criteria, and noise control.
He is adept working alone and as part of a team.

His resume and references are available upon request. Contact him at 2016 Floyd Ave, Richmond VA 23220. Or email him at:

dom@walkablestreets.com

Self-Authored Reports & Essays

Interview with Ottawa radio station CKCU (6/09)

Context-Sensitive Access Management (12/08)

Should We Subsidize Parking for Low-Income Households? (10/08)

The Car is the Enemy of the City (5/08)

Downtown Plan and Returning to the Timeless Tradition (4/08)

Time to End Soviet-Styled Economics (4/08)

Gainesville’s War Zone (4/08)

Congestion is our friend (2/08)

Interview with The Bloomington (IN) Alternative (10/07)

Local Government Opposition to Smart Growth (9/06)

Solving the Downtown Parking Problem (8/06)

Model Urban Design Strategies (4/06)

One Size Does Not Fit All: Applying the Transect Tool to Bicycle Facilities (2/06)

Downtown Parking (5/05)

On the importance of ratcheting down Speed and Size (3/05)

Mashpee Commons: Transforming a shopping center into a walkable town center (8/04)

Context-Sensitive Street Design Literature (4/04)

Street Widening Reduces Safety, Despite What Your Engineer Might Say (3/03)

The Economic Merits of Road Diets & Traffic Calming (6/02)

On the Importance of Neighborhood-Based Schools (7/01)

The Principles and Merits of New Urbanism.

What is a "Third Place," and Why are They Important?

Location-Efficient Mortgages.

The Merits of Traffic Calming.

Where Are We on Neighborhood Noise Pollution?

Greenspace Acquisition & Ranking Program (GARP).

Bibliography: Sustainable, Livable Transportation & Land Use.

Back to top

Essays and Articles by Others

City Design: A Forgotten Art?, by Bruce Leidstrand.

Florida Sprawl Repair Act, by Duany/Plater-Zyberk, architects & town planners.

Reducing Risk Increases Risky Behavior, by William Ecenbarger.

How to Save the Suburbs, by Jebediah Reed.

The Stimulus Bill Test, by Neal Peirce.

The Myth of the Efficient Car, by Alec Dubro.

Stimulus on the next American Dream, by Peter Calthorpe.

Removing Roads Improves Traffic, by Linda Baker.

Reassessing On-Street Parking, by W. E. Marshall, N.W. Garrick, Gilbert Hansen.

Parking at Mixed Use Centers in Small Cities, by by W. E. Marshall, N.W. Garrick, Gilbert Hansen.

The Effects of Traditional Versus Contemporary Urban Form on Parking: A Case Study of New England Centers, by W. E. Marshall, N.W. Garrick, Gilbert Hansen.

Safe Streets, Livable Streets, by Eric Dumbaugh.

This Old House, by David Brooks.

Scrap Zoning: Legalize Great Places, by Rick Cole.

Whose Roads? Why Bicyclists & Pedestrians Pay Their Own Way, by Todd Litman.

Walk this Way, by Amy Hoak.

Gas Prices May Revive Cities, by Bret Schulte.

Suburbs Collapsing, by Lara Farrar.

Suburbs a Mile Too Far, by Jonathan Karp.

Suburban Dream is Fading, by Paul Harris.

Suburbs Feeling the Pinch, by Helen Chernikoff.

Get Ready for the Post-SUV World, by Stan Fox.

The next Slum?, by Christopher Leinberger.