In a March 2005 paper from the Brookings Institution (Brookings, among nerdy friends), urban strategist Christopher Leinberger argues that the defining characteristic of “successful” cities is “walkable urbanity.” The successful-cities bit struck Austinist as a bit Newspeaky, but Leinberger goes on to blame big-box stores like Wal-Mart for “the miles of deteriorating strip commercial littering American arterial highways,” which is something we can get behind. more ›