How to Build a Fine-Grained City: Party Walls, Point Access, and the Granular Block
Recovering the Institutional Capacity for Fine-Grained Urbanism
Courtyard Urbanist
Courtyard Urbanist, founded by Alicia Pederson, PhD, is a research and development platform advancing courtyard block design for North American cities, drawing on Europe’s best neighborhoods to upgrade U.S. cities with family-friendly courtyard blocks.
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Today, Chicago makes 49 luxury townhouses easier to build than a fine-grained neighborhood of 260 homes.
Developers build what the city makes legal and practical. We won’t have the dense, walkable neighborhoods that everyone wants until we change the laws.
A Mixed-Use Courtyard Vision for Western and Lawrence
How an underused bank property could become hundreds of homes, new commercial space, a civic plaza, and a shared neighborhood garden
The Courtyard Block Enters American Housing Policy: July 2026 Market Brief
Federal recognition; reforms in California, North Carolina, New Hampshire, & Connecticut; and much more
Setting the Table for Courtyard Urbanism
What a two-day Strong Towns charrette in Bloomington-Normal taught me about turning downtown repair into an implementation program
The Family-Sized Blind Spot in Inclusionary Zoning
For buildings containing 25 homes or fewer, cities should allow family-sized units to replace otherwise required affordable units.
The ROAD to Housing Act Creates a Federal Pathway for Courtyard Urbanism
Point-access buildings, preapproved courtyard templates, zoning reform, public land, and implementation funding can now be assembled into a new housing-delivery system
June Courtyard Urbanist Market Brief
Turning Housing Reform into Buildable Urban Form
Keep Families in the City: Building Neighborhoods for Lifelong Chicagoans
Get your ticket today for this important event on Sunday, August 16, where we start organizing to remove the regulatory barriers to better family housing in Chicago
Courtyard Urbanism: Ordering the Intensity of the City
How courtyard blocks help cities capture the benefits of density while containing the harms
How Amsterdam is reviving the fine-grained courtyard block
The Dutch are making artificial islands off Amsterdam and using them to build new courtyard-block neighborhoods using a subdivision and passport system.
Courtyard Urbanist Market Brief: May
How stair reform, permit shot clocks, and by-right housing are turning courtyard urbanism from a beautiful idea into a buildable development model