A Year in the Life at Opticos: 2021 in Review

For one last time in 2021, the Opticos team gathered at the office to pause and reflect upon all that we had accomplished this past year. It was a wonderful reminder of the project milestones, professional development, team building exercises, and overall fun we had in the last twelve months as we resumed meetings in the office and travelled nationwide to project sites, community engagement workshops, and speaking events.

The ENU Place Summit: Breaking Down Barriers to Advance and Connect Emerging Professionals within CNU

The Emerging New Urbanists Task Force held their first annual ENU Place Summit in San Francisco/Berkeley (hosted by Opticos), Chicago, New Haven/NYC, and via virtual platforms concurrently in October 2021. This inaugural event celebrated the creation of the Emerging New Urbanist (ENU) Task Force – a team of rising leaders dedicated to their mission of advancing the goals of the Charter of the New Urbanism with a focus on empowering emerging professionals to shape the future of the CNU.

Bringing Missing Middle Back to Greenville, South Carolina

If you’ve ever been to Greenville, South Carolina, you can understand why so many people want to live there. It’s got a small-town feel, is only a short walk or bike ride into nature and has beautiful tree-lined streets with great physical character. But along with that appeal comes housing-related growing pains: higher housing costs with few choices, aside from detached houses and apartment developments. Recently, Greenville found themselves looking for an innovative approach to address their wide range of housing needs and interests. 

What’s Next for Downtown San Rafael?

New Community-Driven Precise Plan Heads for Adoption by City Council, Aiming to Create a Mixed-Use, Transit-Rich Downtown Area

Ten Actions Toward Being an Antiracist New Urbanist

At the recent CNU.29 Design for Change, a virtual conference by the Congress for New Urbanism, Karen Parolek hosted a capstone seminar on the roles and responsibilities of New Urbanists in dismantling systemic racism in the United States.