The most-read articles on Planetizen in 2025.
In 2025, Planetizen readers, like many others, took an interest in stories tracking the impacts of the second Trump administration on transportation, housing, and land use policies around the country. The growing water crisis in the Southwest, particularly Arizona, and efforts to develop sustainable communities in a desert climate also drew readers’ attention. The nationwide housing crisis remains a pressing issue as cities and states look for innovative ways to make housing more affordable and accessible, and planners work to make cities more resilient and sustainable in the face of an ever-changing climate.
Feature Articles
- Manufactured Crisis: Losing the Nation’s Largest Source of Unsubsidized Affordable Housing (March 2025)
- California High-Speed Rail's Plan to Right Itself (May 2025)
- Planetizen Federal Action Tracker (April 2025)
- San Francisco is in a “Doom Loop.” A Legendary Artist and Burning Man Founder Knows how to Revive it. (August 2025)
- How the Trump Presidency Could Impact Urban Planning (January 2025)
- The Hollowing Out of Rural Georgia (October 2025)
- Rethinking Redlining (May 2025)
- Retrosilient?: America’s First “Eco-burb,” The Woodlands Turns 50 (February 2025)
- The 120 Year Old Tiny Home Villages That Sheltered San Francisco’s Earthquake Refugees (April 2025)
- 106 Years Ago She Predicted Today’s Housing Crisis. What if we’d Listened? (September 2025)
Blog Posts
- In Praise of Analog Cities: Futureproofing in a Time of Crisis (July 2025)
- Will Urban Planners Lose Their Jobs to AI? (September 2025)
- Why Should We Subsidize Public Transportation? (April 2025)
- Four Reasons Urban Planners Can’t Ignore AI (May 2025)
- How Smaller Supermarkets Could Transform American Communities (January 2025)
- Rethinking Suburban Development: New Trends in Creating Livable Communities (February 2025)
- To Sprawl or Not to Sprawl: But Is That the Question? (August 2025)
- In Urban Planning, AI Prompting Could be the New Design Thinking (June 2025)
- Good Planning Under Bad Leadership (February 2025)
- For Better Public Transit, We Need Better Stories (October 2025)
Gifts That Keep on Giving: Older Pieces Readers Still Love
- Red Cities, Blue Cities, and Crime (March 2023)
- How Jayne Mansfield’s Tragic Death Led to Reforms in the Trucking Industry (June 2023)
- The 15 Fastest-Growing Cities in the US (June 2024)
- The Missing 13th Floor: How Ancient Fears Influence Modern Architecture (January 2023)
- How We Talk About Homelessness: Why Language Matters (June 2022)
News Posts
- Nearly Half a Million New Arizona Homes Halted Due to Water Crisis (October 2025)
- EVs Now Barred From Freeway HOV Lanes (September 2025)
- Florida Considers Legalizing ADUs (March 2025)
- Alabama: Trump Terminates Settlements for Black Communities Harmed By Raw Sewage (April 2025)
- Montreal Mall to Become 6,000 Housing Units (May 2025)
- Arizona is Desperate to Develop Housing in the Desert. This Town Has it Figured Out (October 2025)
- In Small Town Colorado, Rent is so High that Employees are Camping on Company Property (November 2025)
- Sinking Into Wetlands, This Northern California Highway Needs a Rescue (October 2025)
- Elon Musk’s Company Breaks Ground on Nashville Tunnel — Without City Approval (October 2025)
- A Multimillion Dollar Virginia Company is Turning Empty Office Buildings Into Farms (September 2025)
Planning Trends for 2026: States and Cities Take Initiative, Passenger Rail Gains Steam, and the Costs of AI Revealed
With federal funding for everything from transportation projects to housing assistance under threat, city and state governments are poised to take a stronger role in building strong, resilient local economies and public services.
Planning Trends for 2025: Creative Housing Solutions, Ongoing Transit Woes, and the Ever-Creeping Tentacles of AI
Urban planners have no shortage of urgent issues to delve into, from a deepening housing crisis to an increasingly unpredictable climate to a new federal administration bent on slashing key funding for everything from electric cars to housing assistance.
March Must-Reads: Top 10 Articles From Last Month
Proposed housing solutions, Chicago transit in peril, and executive actions in limbo.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
Data reveals that NYC’s bet on congestion pricing has paid off
After almost two years of the program, reports show positive impacts on traffic and air quality and no disruptions to parking.
HUD modernizes 50-year-old manufactured housing framework
The Next Generation Manufactured Housing Action Plan establishes new energy-efficiency standards for manufactured homes, and new guidelines for anchoring them.
California voters weigh $11.25 billion housing bond
Prop. 1, combined with other funding, would support over 40,000 new rental units in California.
Connecticut is turning landfills into green infrastructure
Twenty-nine solar arrays have been built, or approved to be built, on top of Connecticut landfills.
Trump guts ‘win-win’ solar energy program for rural farmers
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s changes have made virtually all solar power ineligible for funding through the Rural Energy for America Program.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
One Hundred Miles
County of Mendocino
planning NEXT
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
Montrose County
Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA)
The Pocatello Development Authority
