Planning professionals have gathered at a workshop in Mt. Lebanon this morning to talk about fostering good community design.

To see good design in practice, look no further than Mt. Lebanon municipality, many of the workshop's speakers said before the event.

"Mt. Lebanon is a great example of a community that recognizes the value of place, that is a community that has a thriving business district and older homes. They recognize that part of the value that creates exists in the physical fabric of their community," said Anne-Marie Lubenau, the president and CEO of the Community Design Center of Pittsburgh.

Her organization seeks to improve quality of life through good design, by connecting people and communities with planning resources.

She's not the only speaker at today's event who speaks positively about the Mt. Lebanon community.

For five years of his childhood, Thomas Hylton lived there, but he's since moved to Pottstown, Montgomery County. The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist is the author of the book "Save Our Land, Save Our Towns," and is the president of the nonprofit organization of the same name. Several of his columns about planning and development have been published in this newspaper.

His message is that the sprawl that has come to typify many of America's communities is not sustainable economically, environmentally or socially.

Instead, planners need to return to the time-tested development patterns of creating walking-scale communities.

Mt. Lebanon, where Mr. Hylton used to walk to Lincoln Elementary School as a first-grader, is one of those walking-scale places that he hopes other communities will emulate.

"If you look at the 2,500 municipalities in Pennsylvania, Mt. Lebanon is near the top as far as a design standpoint," he said.

Keith McGill is the municipal planner for Mt. Lebanon, so he works with developers and individual property owners to maintain the community's character.

He'll be speaking at the workshop about how municipalities can lead by example, provide clear zoning guidelines and standards, and collaborate with developers.

He said he hoped that the event would provide the opportunity to exchange ideas and learn more about design planning.

The Good Design Makes Dollars and Sense daylong workshop will take place today in the Mt. Lebanon Municipal Building.

The opening keynote address by Mr. Hylton, at the Mellon School Auditorium on Washington Road, will take place at 8:30 a.m. and is free and open to the public.

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