Urban projects will remain hot in 2017 — whether they are actually in an urban area or not.

Older, close-in suburbs of Columbus such as Whitehall are seeing more “infill” development, while newer suburban areas in Dublin and around the shopping areas of Easton and Polaris are reverse-engineering city centers where they have not existed.

“Walkable” and “mixed use” have become hot terms in central Ohio and around the country; The New York Times wrote this month about “the charge to a more urbanized suburbia” in the New York area. This is a reversal from the trend 20 or 30 years ago, when suburban-style buildings such as enclosed shopping malls were being built to try to lure shoppers back downtown from their suburban homes.

Read the story – The Columbus Dispatch – December 25, 2016