We highlight here some great articles we’ve read this week dealing with art, creative placemaking, and building great communities. You’re sure to find some inspiration to make your life and our community even better!

1. Thinking Creatively About Mass Transit: This may not look like transit to you, but it is the only way we are going to build and scale successful, viable transit systems in cities all across this country. If you want transit, build a place. Connect it to another place. Think incrementally.

2. Child-Friendly Cities or What a Toddler Can Teach About City Design: Good urban design fosters human interaction, getting to know one’s neighbors, a sense of community and eyes on the street…. Having a toddler in tow has a way of unlocking and revealing the social life of the city. With my daughter constantly observing people on the street and in the park, attracting attention, engaging both human and canine passers-by, pointing out every baby that passes in a stroller, I’ve had to learn to talk to strangers on an almost daily basis.

3. Family-Friendly Cities?: What we are likely to find is that many of our beloved and highly ranked sprawl communities wouldn’t rank so highly with their frequent auto collisions, lack of sidewalks and unsafe speed limits.

4. Shooting with Cameras Instead of Guns: Photography gave me a way to channel feelings and support myself. It gave me a way to seek justice and a reason to live. This psychological help kept me from turning to guns or drug.

5. The State of Arts Funding in the U.S.: In 2011, art funding in the United States reached a record low following the financial crisis. The 2013 National Arts Index revealed art spending made up just 0.28 percent of the government’s non-military budget in 2011, with local government spending also dropping by 21 percent over that time. The percentage of American households donating private funds to the arts also declined by almost 9 percent.