Op-Ed

In the useless war of highways versus transit, both transit advocates and highway planners are guilty of ignoring the problems with their respective solutions, while the American public is left without any practical solutions for moving beyond auto dependence.

The sprawl vs. smart growth and New Urbanism debate is far from a black and white issue. Planners must account for the complexities of commutes and demographic patterns when deciding how best to approach land use issues, writes Sriram Khé, PhD, Associate Professor of Geography at Western Oregon University, in this Op-Ed.

Pedestrian pioneer Alan Durning describes what his family of five is learning by living without four wheels in Cascadia's largest city. Can they survive without the essential currency of the modern American community?

Using Wrights & Sites new "A Mis-Guide To Anywhere", city dwellers around the world can unlock a "mental toolkit" that will help them discover the extraordinary in the seemingly mundane urban experience, writes author Phil Smith.

From affordable housing development to the Trump Towers, the dynamic yet low profile real estate industry represents so much more than brokerage, writes James Carberry, co-author of The Inside Track to Careers in Real Estate, in this Op-Ed.

As the American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP) institutes its new Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct, Sarah Jo Peterson, PhD, Assistant Professor of Regional and City Planning at the University of Oklahoma, remembers the old code and its greater capacity to inspire America's planners.

In Glasgow, Scotland, a new Master's course in urban design at the Department of Architecture, University of Strathclyde, infuses European planning with a much-needed sense of history and human scale, write professors Ombretta Romice and Wolfgang Sonne.

Pundits may not be facing up to the ultimate answer to rising energy costs -- our physical environment -- but the American consumer is already deep into the calculus, says Anthony Flint, author of This Land: The Battle over Sprawl and the Future of America.

Oregon's Measure 37 has inspired a national property rights movement to restrict local regulatory takings and dramatically reduce eminent domain powers, writes Leonard Gilroy, AICP, in this Op-Ed.

Joel Kotkin, author of the November 2005 report "The New Suburbanism", introduces the new planning theory, clarifies what it means, and describes how it remains very much a work in progress.

In this final installment of Planetizen's three part series on parking, Mott Smith, Principal of planning and development firm Civic Enterprise Associates in Los Angeles, analyzes the urban design problems generated by gratuitous "onsite" parking requirements, which ruin street life and force property owners to use their lots inefficiently.

In this second installment of Planetizen's three part series on parking, Donald Shoup, FAICP, author of The High Cost of Free Parking, delves deeper into the concept of parking management, explaining how practical policies can mean big benefits for the streets on which they are enacted. With performance-based parking prices, local revenue return, and parking increment finance, everybody wins.

In this first installment of Planetizen's three part series on parking, Todd Litman, author of Parking Management Best Practices and Executive Director of the Victoria Transport Policy Institute, discusses parking management strategies and how they can be used to improve cities.

Can't we all just get along? Law professor Michael Lewyn argues that despite their heated debates, both smart growth advocates and libertarians can agree that important elements of American zoning law lead to sprawling, car-dominated cities and suburbs, while limiting development choices and property rights.

The events of 9/11 have had a dramatic effect on our cities, from authorities surrounding hundreds of public buildings with Jersey barriers, to continued suburbanization away from more "threatened" downtowns. Yet as the chorus of those questioning the assumptions of 9/11 grows, Michael Dudley argues that planners too must examine the attacks that so profoundly impacted their profession.

On this President's Day, are you stuck in traffic from your exurban house to the sale at the local Hummer dealer? It's Thomas Jefferson's fault. The genius who drafted the Declaration of Independence also espoused a far-ranging anti-urban philosophy, with policies setting the stage for two centuries of sprawling development and political biases against cities.

Ricky Mathews, Publisher of the Biloxi Sun Herald and Vice-Chairman of the Governor's Commission on Recovery, Rebuilding, and Renewal after Hurricane Katrina, argues that Andres Duany and other New Urbanists have been critical to the early success of rebuilding efforts in Mississippi, providing citizens not only with the hope of recovery, but with master planning that has inspired confidence in a bigger and better Gulf Coast community, all while respecting local traditions.

Economist Joe Cortright and Carol Coletta, host of Smart City Radio and CEO of CEOs for Cities, outline findings in their recent report, "The Young and the Restless in a Knowledge Economy". Just how important are young people to the revitalization of inner cities, or more precisely defined "close-in neighborhoods"? What can cities do to capitalize on demographic opportunities and stay competitive?

When The New York Times linked CNU planners to an alleged scheme to replace a neighborhood with a golf course, it blundered and missed a larger story on renewing Coastal Missisippi, say CNU co-authors John Norquist and Stephen Filmanowicz.

Problems with nomenclature may prevent "smart growth" -- or high-density housing -- from being used appropriately, including targeting the right audience. If the vast majority of people want "sprawl", should they get it? Smart growth may only be appropriate for the minority willing to accept it, writes Rick Bishop, AICP.