Calthorpe Associates is internationally recognized for its innovative leadership in urban design, community planning, and regional growth strategies.  For nearly two decades the firm has assisted private and public clients in shaping new forms of growth and redevelopment – forms that help reestablish a sense of place, scale, history and environmental balance within the built environment.

Calthorpe Associates' design philosophy focuses on creating communities that are diverse, mixed-use, and pedestrian friendly. The firm places a special emphasis on fostering places that provide a range of housing in close proximity to shopping, jobs, recreation, and transit -- walkable communities that offer realistic housing and transportation choices. Our projects range from urban infill and redevelopment plans to new towns and regional growth strategies.The challenge of contemporary urban design is in synthesizing the diverse needs of modern households with the timeless need for human scale, civic identity, and ecological sustainability. In addressing this challenge, Calthorpe Associates has been a pioneer in developing the concepts of New Urbanism, Transit Oriented Development (TOD), Urban Villages, and Regional Cities. Firm Principal Peter Calthorpe has published extensively on these topics and has authored several books, including Sustainable Communities with Sim Van der Ryn, The Next American Metropolis: Ecology, Community, and the American Dream, and a new book with William Fulton, The Regional City: New Urbanism and the End of Sprawl.

Urban design and master planning now calls for the integration of many complex factors, including market demands, environmental opportunities, community input, and technical efficiencies. Our comprehensive approach to each project seeks to integrate these factors into plans and designs that are appropriate to their place, financially sound, and socially progressive. With an interdisciplinary staff of urban designers, planners, architects, and landscape architects, Calthorpe Associates provides a full complement of planning, design, and implementation services. The firm's expertise ranges from individual buildings to regional plans, from housing and retail development to commercial and civic design. This wide-ranging experience provides a unique perspective and facilitates the development of mixed-use community plans that are grounded in a detailed knowledge of their elements.