Community / Economic Development
Mixed-Income Development to Replace Notorious L.A. Housing Project
A scheme to transform a Watts housing project with mixed-use development earned final approval from the L.A. City Council on Wednesday. Shops, town homes, and open spaces are to replace "one of the city's most poverty-stricken and violent areas."
Jan Gehl: People-Friendly Cities Are Cheap & Easy
Famed Danish architect Jan Gehl shared his thoughts this week about people-friendly cities, and why we have no option but to build them.
CA Redevelopment Bill: Communist Land Grab or Catalyst for Affordable Housing?
Amid political demagoguery, a bill to help spur infill redevelopment and the creation of affordable housing in California, following the dismantling the state's redevelopment agencies, is advancing through the California legislature.
Walkability, But Hold the Red Tape
Urbanists must adopt less bureaucratic approaches so that the next generation can build and grow the economy, Andres Duany says. Hence the proliferation of “lean” codes that emphasize only the essentials of shaping community.
Want to Avoid Detroit's Fate? Diversify Your Economy
"Nearly all the rich world’s industrial cities fell on hard times between 1950 and 1980," says The Economist. Why did some recover while others failed? A new paper argues that skilled workers and a diverse economy are key to overcoming adversity.
San Francisco Gains Affluence and Loses Its Identity
The latest 'digital gold rush' has been a boost for the Bay Area's high earners, but a blow to its diversity and affordability. Conspicuous transportation modes - fleets of private buses and black town cars - epitomize the area's growing divide.
Festival Makes Crowdfunding a Community-Building Affair
An innovative event held recently in Jacksonville, Florida used a festival as a means to bring crowdfunding to the people; providing a platform for community building and branding in the process. Could this be the future of financing public projects?
Can a Dollar and a Dream Bring Back Gary, Indiana?
Just south of Chicago, the city of Gary is suffering from post-industrial blight, decaying infrastructure, and declining finances - an all too common trajectory in the Rust Belt. A program selling vacant homes for $1 hopes to stabilize neighborhoods.
Community Gardening Program Feeds Those Hungry for Improving San Jose's Poor Neighborhoods
San Jose's Garden to Table program is just one of several initiatives led by CommUniverCity that are collectively giving disadvantaged residents the tools to improve their personal health and the health of their communities.
Base Your Transit Investment Arguments on Agglomeration
Forget reducing congestion and improving the environment; a new paper makes perhaps the strongest argument yet for investing in public transit based on its ability to agglomerate, or cluster people together, raising wages and productivity.
Building Resilience Through Reconnected Communities
What has the United States lost in its journey from a nation of communities to a nation of individuals? Resilience, for one, says Scott Doyon, who suggests how we can utilize community design and planning processes to regrow social ties.
Indianapolis Revival Is a Team Effort
What's made the difference in the trajectories of similarly-sized Midwest cities Detroit and Indianapolis? According to David Masciotra, cross-sector partnerships centered around sports entertainment have been the driving force behind Indy's success.
The Grand Plans that Failed to Save Detroit
The $500 million Renaissance Center, a 2.9-mile People Mover, and new downtown sports stadiums are just some of the grand schemes that were supposed to help arrest Detroit's decades-long decline.
Lessons From a Model Mixed-Income Community
25 years ago, the conversion of 1950's era public housing into a mixed-income community on Columbia Point in Boston provided the template for the federal government's Hope VI program. How has this seminal project withstood the test of time?
Rising Costs Threaten to Thwart UK High-Speed Rail
Britain's grand plan to halve travel times between the country's biggest cities and expand economic growth outside London via high-speed rail is getting pushback from the very places it's meant to help.
British Resort Towns Become 'Dumping Grounds' for the Poor
High levels of unemployment, drug addiction and teenage pregnancy leave British seaside towns locked in a culture of 'poverty attracting poverty'.
Striving for Attainable Infill Housing in Arkansas
Willow Bend is a new, nonprofit development planned for an ecologically rich, 7.6-acre infill site in the Walker Park neighborhood of Fayetteville, Arkansas. The project is envisioned as a replicable model of sustainable and attainable housing.
In Struggling Region, Colleges Provide a Lifeline for 'Berkeley of the East'
Besides its beautiful gorges, Ithaca is famous as the home of Cornell University (and Ithaca College). Could the way they've insulated the city from the economic troubles that've plagued upstate New York provide a model for other struggling cities?
Sustainability: What’s In a Word?
The term "sustainability" carries so much baggage that we're no longer able to talk about what we actually need to talk about. What can we do to depoliticize it?
Are Stadiums Akin to Museums and Libraries?
As D.C. debates the value of subsidizing the construction of a soccer stadium on a site in Buzzard Point, Dan Malouff argues that such facilities should be judged as cultural amenities, rather than business investments.
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.
Greater Baltimore Committee
Eagle County Government
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
Journal of the American Planning Association
