Michael Dudley is the Indigenous and Urban Services Librarian at the University of Winnipeg.
Having served on the editorial board of Plan Canada for more than four years now, I've gained a pretty good sense of what makes a solid article on planning practice, and the common pitfalls to which authors often fall victim. As such, I offer below some guidelines that should assist prospective authors interested in submitting to the practitioner literature in producing the most suitable submissions requiring the least amount of revision.
Monday, February 4, 2013 - 9:08am PST
Years ago, when I was researching my thesis concerning city
planning thought in the 1940s and 50s, I came across an article from an
American planning journal, which stated that "everyone is in favor of fast
and efficient freeways" – the epitome of prevailing orthodoxy in an era of
Interstate Highway construction. Now, when I share this quote with students, it
only elicits derisive laughter.
Monday, October 15, 2012 - 8:09am PDT
Whenever we weed through the records of our personal past -- diaries, letters, drawings, school assignments from our youth -- we face difficult decisions over what to keep and what to discard. We are forced to come to terms with our documented past, and often recognize the power such records hold to both inspire – and embarrass. For
individuals and governments alike, the decision over what to record, what to
retain and what to communicate is a potent one, for it can either afford or
constrain opportunities for actions in the future, as well as confirm or
conflict with the image or myths we choose to tell about ourselves.
Thursday, July 12, 2012 - 10:33am PDT
Last week my family and I took in the 2011 Cannes Lions
International Festival of Creativity (more commonly referred to as the Cannes
Commercials), the annual celebration of the best in filmed advertising. The
winning ads were, as usual, an entertaining mix of the hilarious, risqué and
the moving, and afforded the viewer the chance to be exposed to diverse film
styles (and unfamiliar products) from around the world.
Wednesday, April 4, 2012 - 11:26am PDT
Where there are no facts, sentiment rules.
- Oswald Spengler, The Decline of the West
In my previous two posts I have set the stage for our
consideration of information sources in planning by arguing for the relevance of
such an effort when it comes to (increasingly controversial) urban planning
issues, and to situate such in terms of recognizing the influence of our world views on
the production and use of informational and built environments.
Wednesday, February 22, 2012 - 10:33am PST
"What is an ideology without a space to which it refers, a
space which it describes, whose vocabulary and kinks it makes use of, and whose
code it embodies?"
- Henri
Lefebvre, The Production of Space p. 44.
Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - 12:19pm PST
Tuesday, January 24, 2012 - 11:23am PST
We all remember that day: How we first heard, whom we were with, how we felt as we watched an iconic American cityscape transformed into a burning, toxic wreckage, knowing that thousands were surely dead, many never to be found. We can all too easily recall how our disbelief quickly turned to horror, sadness and then fear – a fear that the world was now a fundamentally different place, and what that would mean for ourselves and our children.
Wednesday, September 7, 2011 - 7:55am PDT
On Monday, August 22nd, the leader of Canada’s New
Democratic Party, Jack Layton, succumbed to cancer and passed away, mere months
after leading his left-leaning party to unprecedented electoral success as the
official opposition to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservatives. Since
then, the public expressions of loss, and the celebration of his life, have
been extraordinary: impromptu memorials have sprung up in cities across Canada,
especially in Toronto where he sat as a city councilor for almost 20 years before moving to federal
politics.
Friday, August 26, 2011 - 8:41am PDT
The Fukushima
reactors and their associated buildings have been exploding, melting and
burning for not quite a week yet, but already the sense of déjà vu is
inescapable.
Wednesday, March 16, 2011 - 9:56am PDT
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