Development regulations often make housing, particularly starter homes, more expensive, if not impossible to build.

For example, most new houses have three bedrooms – something many families don't need. There are also restrictions on smaller lot sizes and attached single-family options. And financing requirements often exacerbate the gap between supply and demand.

As part of the Library’s Making a Great City series, Allison Thurmond Quinlan, an architect and advocate for infill development, will discuss how cities can boost affordable housing by removing some of these barriers. She also shares designs of some of the single and multi-family homes her firm has built as examples of what is possible when these barriers are removed.

In 2015, Quinlan started Flintlock LAB, a multidisciplinary consulting firm based in Fayetteville, Arkansas, which focuses on building lovable places that are socially, environmentally, and economically sustainable. Her policy experience includes serving as a planning commissioner and as a member of the construction board of appeals.

Quinlan’s work has garnered awards from the Congress for New Urbanism, the American Society of Landscape Architects, the American Institute of Architects, Architizer, and the American Planning Association.