James Brasuell, AICP is the former editorial director of Planetizen and is now a senior public affairs specialist at the Southern California Association of Governments. James managed all editorial content and direction for Planetizen from 2014 to 2023, and was promoted from manging editor to editorial director in 2021. After a first career as a class five white water river guide in Trinity County in Northern California, James started his career in Los Angeles as a volunteer at a risk reduction center in Skid Row. Prior to joining Planetizen, James worked at the Cal Poly Pomona College of Environmental Design, as an editor at Curbed LA, as editor of The Planning Report, and as a freelance contributor for The Architect’s Newspaper, the Urban Land Institute – Los Angeles Chapter, FORM, KCET, and the California Planning & Development Report.
Website Opens Bay Area Transportation Data to the Masses
The Metropolitan Transportation Commission—the Bay Area's regional transportation planning agency—recently did fans of data and mapping a huge favor and launched a website called Vital Signs.
New Research Maps Transit Poverty
New research provides sorely needed tools for illustrating the neighborhoods that suffer a lack of transportation options to access jobs and opportunity.
Poking around the New York Subway for Germs
Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College have spent the last 18 months scouring the New York Subway in the search for a DNA profile of the system. They even created a map of the 15,152 microbes they found.
Safety of 'Lightweight Wood Construction' in Question after Massive Fire
A catastrophic event in Edgewater, New Jersey, in which a 408-unit apartment complex was gutted by fire, has inspired legislators to propose a moratorium on the materials and practices of "light frame construction."
Friday Eye Candy: Time-Lapse Shows How Rivers Meander
"No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it's not the same river and he's not the same man." -Heraclitus, as quoted by Plato in Cratylus.