What Japan Knows That We Don’t

A country with thirteen zoning categories builds better neighborhoods than a country with fifty. The reason is one word long and we already know it…

May 26 • Jeffery Tompkins

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The Cart Test™

A stupid-sounding heuristic for whether you’ve built a real place. We can think big by thinking cart instead of car.

May 20 • Jeffery Tompkins

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March 2026

Why the Five-Over-One Feels Dead

The most common new buildings in America score well on every planning metric we have. Except the ones we feel.

Mar 24 • Jeffery Tompkins

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What Makes a Place Go?

Something separates the streets that hum from the streets that don't. I've spent my years trying to name it.

Mar 16 • Jeffery Tompkins

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Welcome to Speed City

Indianapolis's new branding strategy can be a winning one. But we have to imbue it as part of our culture.

Mar 9 • Jeffery Tompkins

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February 2026

Rigid Zoning is a Bottleneck on Indiana's Competitiveness.

Indi­ana has spent dec­ades per­fect­ing a 20th-cen­tury eco­nomic play­book: keep taxes low, reg­u­la­tions light and the cost of doing busi­ness…

Feb 9 • Jeffery Tompkins

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January 2026

Double Up the Lot: Turning Backyards into Bank Accounts

We should start saying "yes in my backyard" quite literally. The result could be generational wealth-creation for long-term residents.

Jan 6 • Jeffery Tompkins

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December 2025

I Want My MTV (Mall to Village): A 6-Step Guide to Retrofitting Suburbia

Stop, collaborate, and listen. It’s time to turn dead retail boxes into living neighborhoods. Just not all of them.

Dec 15, 2025 • Jeffery Tompkins

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From Strip to Hip

Cities should create a Shopping Center Potential Index to understand where limited municipal resources should be spent

Dec 14, 2025 • Jeffery Tompkins

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You don’t hate paying taxes!

What you hate is paying taxes and getting nothing in return.

Dec 8, 2025 • Jeffery Tompkins

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Land Value Tax Would Solve This (But Probably Not in Indy)

Cities have other tools to encourage vacant properties to develop

Dec 3, 2025 • Jeffery Tompkins

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Will AI Replace Concept Work Done by Architects?

Hint: it already has

Dec 1, 2025 • Jeffery Tompkins

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