The Planning Report

For 37 years, L.A.-based non-profit TreePeople has advocated an enlightened method of community and governmental engagement to create healthier urban ecosystems and built environments.

Having watched L.A. evolve for over three decades, architect Jan van Tilburg has dedicated himself to producing the high-quality, dense, multi-unit housing that the city desperately needs.

In the 20th century, the United States embraced expatriate modernists feeling the rubble of Europe. Today's eclectic style hails from around the world, and, increasingly, talent from Asia is creating bold new ideas in the post-postmodern era.

L.A.'s sprawl is not so much a matter of choice as of policy, with even its downtown artificially limited to a 6:1 FAR. But as the city clamors for greater density, a clever plan to transfer air rights is in the works.

The Los Angeles Planning Department has established an Urban Design Studio to tackle the city's thousands of miles of dead streets and aesthetic blight.

Habitat for Humanity takes its expertise in creating builder-owners in suburban settings to Los Angeles, which desperately needs affordable housing. The Planning Report interviews CEO Erin Rank.

A movement is afoot to make schools more than just places to store kids for eight hours a day. Planning Director Gail Goldberg and child advocate Yolie Flores Aguilar are helping lead the way in Los Angeles.

Former California State Health Officer Richard Jackson offers a prescription for a country suffering from obesity, diabetes, and poor fitness: design neighborhoods, schools, and buildings that promote incidental exercise.

At an alarming rate, American children are suffering from obesity and related afflictions. Despite all the money spent on health care, the solution to many public health problems lies not in medicine but in the fabric of cities.

With Southern California's strictest urban growth rules and a commitment to preserving open space and agriculture, Ventura County has become the region's hotbed of smart growth.

Noted L.A.-area scholar Ed Blakely helped Oakland and L.A. rebound from earthquakes; now he's turning to the resurrection of New Orleans. The Planinng Report features an interview.

The Institute for Transportation and Development Policy helps cities in the developing world address traffic and congestion with creative, cost-efficient solutions. Executive Director Walter Hook shares some strategies for the US as well.

Often reviled for its gritty neighborhood, the University of Southern California is reaching out to its surrounding communities and putting forth initiatives to bridge the town-gown divide and spur economic development.

Los Angeles, with one of the smallest arboreal canopies of any major American city, has launched an initiative to plant one million trees over the next few years.

Local governments in California weary of losing the ability to 'plan' are speaking out against the initiative's purported goals of reforming eminent domain and the valuation of regulated land.

The Planning Report interviews USC Planning School dean Jack Knott about the school's ambitions of preparing students to lead in regions throughout the world.

In the guise of an anti-eminent domain measure, California's Prop 90 seeks to trick voters into adopting a policy that would devastate the state's ability to set aside land for conservation.

Rapidly advancing web technologies are enabling planners to merge location and data like never before. UCLA's Jeff Burke explains how embedded sensors, 'mash-ups,' and a host of other technologies are helping planners and everyday citizens alike.

The Planning Report features a candid interview with Ken Bernstein, chief of Los Angeles' newly-created Planning Department's Office of Historic Preservation.

HUD's Los Angeles Housing Authority is replacing its older, "oppressive", public housing stock with friendlier, mixed-income complexes to ease the city's housing crisis.