Community / Economic Development

Continuing their excellent coverage of the twists and turns in the California redevelopment saga, CP&DR have run two articles this week providing updates on efforts to navigate a path forward for redevelopment.

February 24, 2012 - California Planning & Development Report

Chuck Wolfe traces the comeback of sandwich board signage in cities, explains how associated regulations work, and offers reasons why such signage should be carefully fostered.

February 24, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Writing from Austin, Texas, one of the current centers for hipster culture in the U.S., Lauren Modery proposes a list of the next cities she believes are ripe for an explosion of old-timey facial hair, geeky eyewear, and overall hipsterfication.

February 23, 2012 - CultureMap Austin

Kaid Benfield revisits the results of a plan to revitalize the town center of Plessis-Robinson, a suburb of Paris, with the suggestion that its success could inform similar efforts in the United States.

February 23, 2012 - Switchboard

John Metcalfe reports on efforts by one New York architect to utilize the city's ubiquitous pay telephone booths as the settings for pop-up libraries.

February 22, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Cezary Podkul and Emily Stephenson examine the likely economic and social consequences of efforts by the U.S. Postal Service to close thousands of rural post offices this year.

February 22, 2012 - The Washington Post

In Kansas City, the historic home of jazz and Prohibition-era excess struggles with a redevelopment effort that attempts to build on that era's history while leaving behind some of its essential characteristics, writes Brandon R. Reynolds.

February 22, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

As a new basketball arena takes shape at the intersection of Flatbush and Atlantic Avenues in Brooklyn, Neil deMause investigates what is next for the controversial, and much changed, Atlantic Yards project.

February 19, 2012 - The Brooklyn Bureau

Kaid Benfield brings attention to HUD's new Sustainable Communities Resource Center website, which provides best practices case studies and other information resources.

February 19, 2012 - Switchboard

Zak Stone reports on a campaign in Chattanooga, Tennessee to distill the city's artistic and entrepreneurial spirit into a font, and asks the question - can a font help a city make a comeback?

February 18, 2012 - Good

In an interview with the San Diego Union-Tribune, Geoffrey Anderson and Bill Fulton reflect on the new normal for development across the country, which astonishingly to anyone looking back twenty years, has absorbed Smart Growth principles.

February 17, 2012 - UT San Diego

As Cleveland takes on yet another effort in "rebranding", Richey Piiparinen looks at past schemes and finds it's better to keep it real.

February 16, 2012 - Rust Wire

Building in the New Economy isn't business as usual. Howard Blackson lays out policy, planning, land assembly and financing tools to help us with our task at hand.

February 15, 2012 - PlaceShakers

Chuck Wolfe uses the urban scale adaptive reuse of the Roman Emperor Diocletian's retirement palace in Split, Croatia to argue for blending the past and future on a broader scale.

February 8, 2012 - The Atlantic Cities

Sarah Laskow reports on a new study by the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) that seeks to rethink how affordable housing is defined to incorporate transportation costs.

February 7, 2012 - Good

President Obama's multi-billion dollar proposal to help homeowners involves providing them refinanced, government-backed loans. The plan is not without its doubters, however.

February 7, 2012 - PBS NewsHour

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson raises the issue that there are not enough minorities representing the communities that planners and designers strive to make better.

February 7, 2012 - Grist

The day after the big game, Diana Lind, with the help of a Planet Money Podcast, delves into the economic ramifications of hosting a super bowl, and wonders whether Indianapolis might not turn out to be the night's biggest loser.

February 6, 2012 - Next American City

The redevelopment postmortem continues with a look at five projects that demonstrate the ways in which the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles (CRA/LA) strayed from its core mission.

February 3, 2012 - Neon Tommy

Writer Tara Sturm explores the merits of incremental urbanism on revitalization efforts with the help of L.A. architect Alan Pullman, highlighting grassroots, community-driven economic development.

February 3, 2012 - Buildipedia.com