Exclusives

BLOG POST

<p> <em>Planetizen is honored to welcome Sam Hall Kaplan to Interchange, our daily blog featuring opinions and commentary from esteemed professionals such as himself. Many of you will need no introduction to Sam or his work. For those of you that do, a quick summary.</em> <br />

April 4 - Sam Hall Kaplan

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March 31 - Walker Wells

FEATURE

March 30 - Jonathan Nettler

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Our profession relies on logical analysis of accurate data. There are an amazing number of ways to go wrong. </p>

March 21 - Todd Litman

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Undergraduates face special challenges and one of them is in finding a planning-related program. The following tips may make the search easier.

March 19 - Ann Forsyth

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<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-family: Arial">Is it mid-March already?</span> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-family: Arial">I’m far overdue for announcing my departure from Planetizen, which happened at the tail end of 2011. It was a wonderful 3 ½ years at the helm, and I thank Chris Steins and Abhijeet Chavan for giving me the opportunity back in 2008 to steer this incomparable resource.</span> </p>

March 14 - Tim Halbur

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<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-family: 'Century Schoolbook'">In <em>For A New Liberty</em>, libertarian intellectual Murray Rothbard writes that leftist intellectuals had raised a variety of complaints against capitalism, and that &quot;each of those complaints has been contradictory to one or more of their predecessors.”  In the 1930s, leftists argued that capitalism was prone to ‘eternal stagnation”, while in the 1960s, they argued that capitalist economies had “grown too much” causing “excessive affluence” and exhaustion of the world’s resources.  And so on. </span> </p>

March 7 - Michael Lewyn

FEATURE

New technologies are providing participatory platforms that allow individuals to share their ideas, interact with other's ideas, and work towards collaborative solutions to resolve problems or take advantage of opportunities. Kevin C. Desouza, PhD offers five guidelines to ensure that the use of such emerging technologies are maximized by practitioners.

March 5 - Kevin C. Desouza

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<p> Returning to San Francisco from a trip to New York City, I ruminated on my first experience of staying in midtown in the city in which I was raised. The city is different, of course. Times Square has fulfilled its <em>Blade Runner</em> destiny, and blue Grecian “Greatest Coffee in the World” cups have been supplanted with those from Starbucks. What stayed with me, however, was a brief exchange with another attendee of the same conference for which I was in town. “Everything is so expensive” she lamented. “I see people with yogurts and sandwiches and other things that don’t seem to cost too much, but I don’t know where they get them.” “Oh, there’s plenty of stuff around here” I replied. “You just have to look.”  </p>

March 2 - Lisa Feldstein

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<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 15px" class="Apple-style-span">Today marks the two year anniversary of the closing ceremonies of the 2010 Vancouver Olympics, and 150 days until the start of the 2012 London Summer Olympic Games. Soon</span><span style="font-size: 15px" class="Apple-style-span"><span> </span></span><span style="font-size: 15px" class="Apple-style-span">millions around the World will turn their attention to London, and in fact to venues across the UK, for the largest sporting and cultural event on Earth. </span></p>

February 28 - Brent Toderian

FEATURE

February 27 - Jonathan Nettler

BLOG POST

<p> Already a major technology trend, 2012 promises to be a watershed for &quot;big data.&quot; A shorthand term for the proliferation of large datasets, big data also refers to the expansion of analytic techniques for teasing meaning from the vast archives of information produced by the digital world. The New York Times&#39; Steve Lohr declared we have entered the &quot;age of big data&quot; in a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/12/sunday-review/big-datas-impact-in-the-world.html">recent article</a> that compared it with another revolutionary research tool -- the microscope. </p>

February 27 - Robert Goodspeed

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<p class="MsoNormal"> Last Thursday I debated the merits of <a href="http://www.epa.gov/smartgrowth/about_sg.htm">smart growth</a> with <a href="http://ti.org/antiplanner/">‘Anti-planner’ Randal O&#39;Toole</a> at a <strong><span style="font-size: 18pt; letter-spacing: 0.25pt; font-family: Arial, sans-serif; color: #1f497d"><a href="http://www.southfraser.net/2012/01/south-fraser-ontrax-presents-debate-on.html">community forum</a> </span></strong>in Langley, a rapidly-growing suburb of Vancouver, British Columbia. <span style="font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px; font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, 'Bitstream Vera Sans', sans-serif">A recording of the Debate and presenters&#39; slide shows are available at <a style="text-decoration: none; font-weight: bold; color: #005884" href="http://www.southfraser.net/2012/02/smart-growth-debate-media.html">www.southfraser.net/2012/02/smart-growth-debate-media.html</a>. </span>At the end more than three quarters of the audience voted for a <a href="http://www.southfraser.net/2012/01/smart-growth-debate-resolution.html">pro-smart-growth resolution</a>. This may reflect some selection bias – people concerned about sprawl may have been more likely to attend – but I believe that given accurate information most citizens will support smart growth due to its various <a href="http://www.vtpi.org/sg_save.pdf">savings and benefits</a>.   </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> Smart growth sometimes faces <a href="/node/54342">organized opposition</a> by critics. It is important that planners respond effectively and professionally. Here is my critique of O&#39;Toole’s claims and some advice for planners who face similar critics. 

February 27 - Todd Litman

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<p class="MsoNormal"> <em>Where there are no facts, sentiment rules.</em> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> - Oswald Spengler, <em>The Decline of the West</em> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> &nbsp; </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> In my previous two posts I have set the stage for our consideration of information sources in planning by arguing for the relevance of such an effort when it comes to<a href="/node/53999"> (increasingly controversial) urban planning issues</a>, and to situate such in terms of recognizing the<a href="/node/54355"> influence of our world views</a> on the production and use of informational and built environments.  </p>

February 22 - Michael Dudley

FEATURE

February 21 - Thomas Sigler

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<p class="MsoNormal"> If you run a google.com search for “The Death of Suburbia” you will find about 24,000 ‘hits.’   Some of the gloating over suburbia’s alleged demise is based on the facts that (some) suburbs have been hit hard by the current economic downturn, and that (some) city neighborhoods have become more expensive per square foot than than suburbs. (1)  But suburbia as a whole continues to gain population. </p>

February 18 - Michael Lewyn

FEATURE

With new research in hand, Fanis Grammenos revisits his analysis of the efficiency of the Simple Grid, and asks what, in fact, should be the preferred layout for a new neighbourhood.

February 14 - Fanis Grammenos

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<div align="center"> </div> <div align="center"> </div> <div align="center"> </div> <div align="center"> </div> <div align="center"> </div> <div align="center"> &quot;What is an ideology without a space to which it refers, a space which it describes, whose vocabulary and kinks it makes use of, and whose code it embodies?&quot;  </div> <p class="MsoNormal" align="center"> <span>            </span>- Henri Lefebvre, <a href="http://books.google.ca/books/about/The_production_of_space.html?id=SIXcnIoa4MwC&amp;redir_esc=y"><em>The Production of Space</em></a> p. 44. </p>

February 8 - Michael Dudley

FEATURE

February 7 - John D. Landis

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As I write this column (2 February) the U.S. House Transportation Committee is debating changes in H.R. 3864, the American Energy and Infrastructure Jobs Act, which will determine future federal transportation policy.

February 2 - Todd Litman