

Over the past three decades, there have been many attempts to revitalize the city, especially its downtown, by constructing several large public buildings, all within a few blocks of each other, all designed with little attention to each other or to the surrounding public spaces, and with a remarkable lack of civic engagement.

town experiencing steep economic decline, present a classic example of the potentially unfortunate results of this approach. The efforts to revitalize downtown Toledo, a mid-western U.S. Although there have long been calls for the discipline to bridge this gap, urban design has continued to lean more heavily on design than planning. Urban design has historically occupied the gap between architecture and planning.
