Creating a (mostly) car-free new town in Costa Rica

I had the pleasure of meeting Charles Brewer right when he was starting to get interested in becoming a real estate developer. This was after a very successful short career in the dot-com world, as he was a founder of Mindspring. When he exited, he became interested in New Urbanism, and decided to shift his career toward the building of new, walkable communities.

Twenty-plus years later, we get a chance to talk about his journey. And, we get to spend a lot of time discussing Las Catalinas, his remarkable new town on the beach in Costa Rica. I wrote some about Las Catalinas, here, after a recent visit.

Charles is especially interesting in that he’s a firm believer in many of the principles of New Urbanism, but he’s also willing to challenge them and all of us who have worked on these communities. His first project, Glenwood Park in Atlanta, is a fantastic infill development by any realistic measure. Fascinatingly, he calls it “mainstream New Urbanism.”

For him, the real challenge and next frontier is figuring out how to create car-free (or mostly car-free) communities. Charles in particular has been very motivated by the experience of kids and families, and how to encourage and allow for more freedom of movement and life for them.

I’ll also just editorialize and say, his projects are a great testimony to the power of an individual’s passion to just get things done, and get them done well. Despite what outsiders and critics might think, these projects are very challenging. Part of the reason we have so few examples like them, is that it takes a rare kind of determination to go against virtually every professional silo in the built environment. Someone used to call this “stick-to-it-ive-ness.” It’s a quality I greatly admire in people, and I hope you do as well.

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Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you’d like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.

Intro: “Why Be Friends”

Outro: “Fairweather Friend”

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