A couple weeks back I went out to visit one of the strangest places I've ever been. It's a pocket of the Southwest that's become notorious in the world of recreational vehicle drivers. A million or more of them visit every year, creating a temporary metropolis of RVs out in the desert. They park in RV lots, on streets, and -- in vast quantities -- out in the desert on open land provided by the Bureau of Land Management. It's not just numbers that makes this place unique. It's the community that forms.

Local governments are increasingly encouraging or even requiring LEED certification in new development, which is nice, but most continue to require generous minimum parking supply, which contradicts their goals.

Last year I had the opportunity to teach a graduate course on "Web 2.0 for Policy and Planning" at the University of Southern California's School of Policy, Planning & Development.

Although I am co-teaching a different class this year, I have updated my course website with a revised course syllabus and extensive reading list on Web 2.0 and planning, based on what I learned from teaching the course in Spring, 2009.

I am spending this spring at the University of Toronto working on an advanced law degree (called an L.L.M.), and am writing a thesis comparing sprawl in Canada and the United States.  Here are a few preliminary findings:

Students nearing graduation are wondering about employment. Some already have jobs lined but many do not. While it is good to start looking, best advice is to graduate first as finishing up after you have a job almost always creates a lot of stress and bother. Previous blogs have covered Finding a First Job in Planning, Tips on Gainful Unemployment for New Planners, and Defining the Planning Skill Set based on surveys of employers and graduates. Anna Read, a recent graduate from Cornell’s MRP program who found employment right away last year, has passed along these tips from her own experience:

A few weeks back, I had a meeting at the University of Southern California's campus. It was a moderately nice day by Los Angeles standards, which in other parts of the country would equate to the best day of the year weather-wise. As I walked among the brick buildings, I was impressed by the number of bicycles parked willy-nilly around the grounds.

As the housing market collapsed and gasoline prices spiked in 2007, many planners may have read Cornell University law professor Eduardo Penalver’s essay in the Washington Post with more than a little satisfaction.

Among the countless stories being written on the successes and challenges of these 2010 Olympic Winter Games, not surprisingly the most interesting stories to me are those that speak to the challenges of great urbanism. As a host city, Vancouver has become a massive urban laboratory, with so many opportunities to learn, and we’re soaking it all up.

As we are coming to the end of the final week, a few examples of big experiments and learnings come to mind.

Most North American cities offer only basic public transit service, with limited coverage and frequency, modest speeds, unattractive waiting areas, poor land use integration, and few amenities. Such service is used primarily by people who lack alternatives. In such communities, riders tend to abandon public transit as soon as feasible.

As managing editor of Planetizen, I'd like to make a quick note on today's op-ed, Resisting Dickensian Gloom by Tony Recsei. Mr Recsei asked for a chance to respond to a recent criticism of his work by Planetizen regular Michael Dudley. It is our policy at Planetizen to allow points of view that are critical of the status quo in urban planning, so I agreed to run the piece. I did ask Mr. Recsei to tone down some of the more personal attacks on smart growthers so that his points could be presented more clearly to our audience, and I believe he has done that.

I recently posted an open-ended question on facebook to my friends about Governor Palin, asking for their views. It was remarkable how condescending many of those views turned out to be, just as Gerard Alexander noted in his excellent February 4 Washington Post editorial.

Herewith are my thoughts on the tea party thing - whatever it is - and how it relates to the challenges faced by the New Urbanists and advocates for Smart Growth....

A decade or so ago, after reading some of Jane Jacobs’ work, I became aware of the distinction between mixed-use and single-use neighborhoods.  In those days, I imagined that in a well-functioning urban neighborhood, every non-polluting use would be mixed together, and the lion of housing would lay down with the lamb of commerce.

The Winter Olympics will begin later this week in Vancouver, British Columbia. Like other hosts of such large-scale sporting events, the city has been getting ready for the international spotlight for many years. To hear more about what's been going on in the city in terms of urban planning, I interviewed Vancouver Planning Director Brent Toderian, and you can read a transcript of that Q&A on Places.

As planners, one of our roles is to help stretch the scope of what is considered possible. For example, between 1950 and 2000 most development was highly automobile-dependent, based on the assumption that almost all travel would be by personal automobile and other modes were relatively unimportant. This pattern is so well established that many people have difficulty imagining anything different. It is useful to help people understand the full range of options available, from automobile dependency to carfree communities.

Crash Course: The American Automobile Industry's Road from Glory to Disaster
By Paul Ingrassia
Random House, 306 pages, $32

Carjacked: The Culture of the Automobile and its Effect on Our Lives
By Catherine Lutz and Anne Lutz Fernandez
Palgrave, 272 pages, $34

Automobiles dominate our economies, our cities and our popular culture. As these new titles make abundantly apparent, they also tend to imbue their makers and owners with either delusions or arrogance that can lead to dangerously misguided decision-making, both behind the wheel and in corporate boardrooms.

When faced with the costs and logistics of rail, planners and city officials increasingly seem to favor Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), a trend likely to continue through the current recession.  But even with the many persuasive arguments for BRT, the nagging question remains:  why not rail?

Followers of Vancouver city planning will remember that in 2008, as part of the approval of the EcoDensity Initiative, our Council approved what remains (we think) the highest green standard for private sector building design in North America. The 2008 policy requires that buildings that go through rezonings (representing most buildings built in Vancouver) must establish that their design, at approval, is capable of achieving LEED™ Silver. We actually nick-named it "Silver Plus", because we mandated that there be a minimum of 3 energy points, 1 water point, and 1 storm water point, emphasizing the things that matter most to us.

Most attempts to regulate suburban development have focused on containing the growth of suburban housing. But such regulation, by restricting the supply of buildable land, risks incresing housing prices. And from a more libertarian perspective, an individual's interest in choosing to "drive to qualify" may seem quite appealing. Attempts to regulate commercial suburban development do not involve the same sentimental considerations as limits on residential development, but do risk increasing prices for commercial land, thus increasing prices for everything else.

Some time ago I noted a number of terrific image resources for urban planners. This blog highlights some additional sources.

Let me wade into an ongoing debate among fellow Planetizen bloggers Samuel Staley and Michael Lewyn concerning the meanings of accessibility and mobility, and their implications for transportation and land use policy.