The Atlas of ReUrbanism is a tool for urban leaders and advocates to better understand and leverage the opportunities that exist in American cities, by allowing for the exploration and discovery of connections between older buildings and economic, demographic, and environmental measures. Whether you’re an activist, journalist, developer, or resident, the Atlas contains detailed information about the businesses and residents, buildings and blocks that make cities work for everyone.

Maps

The Atlas of ReUrbanism maps allow users to explore the built environment of American cities, block by block. Using our maps, you can interact with data on your city's built assets, and click to layer demographic, economic, and environmental data from the U.S. Census, American Community Survey, and more. The maps focus on the Character Score for buildings and blocks across 50 U.S. cities, as established in the National Trust’s Older, Smaller, Better report (2014, PDF). Individual building and block characteristics are also selectable and viewable.

The Character Score metric identifies areas of diverse, dense, and distinctive fabric. It combines with equal weight three metrics:

1. The median age of buildings
2. The diversity of building age within 200-by-200-meter square
3. The size of the buildings and parcel

Factsheets

The Atlas of ReUrbanism fact sheets draw out high-level information about the performance of older buildings and blocks, and display baseline information about the built environment in each city.

The summary report Atlas of ReUrbanism: Buildings and Blocks in American Cities (2016, PDF) includes initial findings from 50 cities across the country.

The Atlas of ReUrbanism was supported through the generous financial contributions of the Jessie Ball duPont Fund, the Kresge Foundation, and the Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.