Tactical Urbanism: An Introduction

Designer and doer Mike Lydon, CNU-A, has one mission: Improving the livability of our towns and cities starting at the street, block, or building scale. In this first course of a two course series, Lydon introduces Tactical Urbanism.

Sometimes sanctioned, sometimes not, these 'tactical' actions are commonly referred to as 'guerrilla urbanism,' 'pop-up urbanism,' 'city repair,' or 'D.I.Y. urbanism.' Tactical Urbanism embraces all of these actions with an approach that features these five characteristics: phased instigation, meeting local planning challenges, realistic and short term, low risk-high gain, and stakeholder capacity building. This course analyzes the drivers of local urbanism and the need for a strategy and tactics approach and addresses the necessary conditions for tactical urbanism to succeed. Key case studies are also presented to explain the movement. The course includes instruction for tactical place-making, traffic calming and re-design, pop-up commerce incubation, and more.