Exclusives

FEATURE

News Summary: Urban Policy and the Obama Presidency

The balloons have fallen, and the yard signs have been yanked up. The people have chosen, and in a historic win, Senator Barack Obama will soon be our next president. Now the hopes and promises of the campaign must harden into reality. Managing Editor Tim Halbur summarize what we can expect from an Obama presidency in regards to urban issues.

November 5 - Tim Halbur

FEATURE

LA to TJ 2008 Mobile Conference: Moving Goods, People and Ideas

November 3 - James Rojas

BLOG POST

The Frontier in American Politics

<span style="border-collapse: separate; font-size: 16px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; color: #000000" class="Apple-style-span"><div style="font-family: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 10px; background-color: #ffffff">With due respect to <a href="http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/TURNER/" target="_blank">Frederick Jackson Turner</a>, the American frontier closes on Tuesday. This time, for good.

November 2 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

Skills in Planning: The Time vs. Quality Opportunity Curve

Recently I’ve been writing about skills that planners need—the findings from surveys of employers and the key role or writing in the planning skill set. Skills like writing, graphics, data analysis, and the ability to listen are obviously important. As <a href="/node/34807" target="_blank">Ethan Seltzer and Connie Ozawa</a>’s 2002 survey found, however, several more general skills are also key. I reported these in an<a href="/node/34807" target="_blank"> earlier blog</a> and they include: working well with the public and with colleagues, being a self-starter, being able to finish work on time and on budget, and understanding public needs.

November 1 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

Water City Design: Vancouver

Since arriving in Vancouver, I've realized that we are part of a "peer group" of international water cities. Through waterfront design conferences where the same cities seem to get invited time and time again, or through deeper and more interactive collegial opportunities for shared learning such as summits or study trips, these global water cities are taking every opportunity to learn from each other's successes and failures around water-edge planning and design.

October 31 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

If You Stripe It, They Will Come

The most recent bicycle counts from two of America's most progressive cities, New York City and Portland, have been made public. The results are impressive as much as they are instructive.

October 31 - Mike Lydon

BLOG POST

Stuart Smalley was a planner!

One of the perks of my job is getting to know new cities and neighborhoods. We research, create a lot of graphics and talk with a lot of people. In the course of those discussions, while people often exhibit pride in where they live, there is also an underlying concern that frequently goes something like this: <ul> <li>“We feel like a last place team – the one that can never get out of the cellar.”</li> <li>“There is a real self-image problem here.”</li> <li>“You can’t do that in [insert name of place here] because we

October 30 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

Championship City

The following post will likely result in the revocation of my Philadelphia residency. It’s heretical to say, especially on a day when the city is on fire (not literally; okay, <a href="http://www.philly.com/philly/gallery/World_Series_Damage.html?index=3">mostly</a> not literally) with excitement. But the city planner in me almost wishes the Phillies hadn’t won last night. Of course I wanted them to win the World Series. Twenty-five years is a long time for any city—let alone a four-sport city—to wait for a championship, and it’s definitely Philadelphia’s time. I’m thrilled to pieces they pulled it out.

October 30 - Jeffrey Barg

FEATURE

The Work of Neighborhood Stabilization

Foreclosures are blighting neighborhoods across the country. There's no question that something needs to be done. But to react effectively, the field of community development needs to carefully consider which areas should be targeted and how much can be saved, argues Charles Buki.

October 30 - Charles Buki

BLOG POST

Halloween Costumes for Urban Planners

It's Halloween and that means it's costume time. But, what's that you say? Too busy updating your comprehensive plan to find a costume? Well, don't fret! I've got some last-minute costume ideas for the busy urban planner that are both fun and planning related.

October 29 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

Laneway Housing moves forward in Vancouver

When Vancouver City Council approved the new EcoDensity Charter and Initial Actions earlier this year, among these was a prioritized action to further develop the idea of laneway housing. The issues and options report relating to this work program is now available for downloading from the <a href="http://www.vancouver-ecodensity.ca/content.php?id=42" title="EcoDensity">EcoDensity website</a>.

October 28 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

The Global Transit Space Race: China's $272 Billion Advantage

This morning I was reading through my daily dose of planning related blogs and dropped in on <a href="http://theoverheadwire.blogspot.com/">The Overhead Wire</a>, Jeff Wood's excellent transit soapbox. One of Jeff's most recent posts links to an October 25th <a href="http://www.news.com.au/story/0,27574,24551437-38197,00.html">Reuters article</a> announcing China's $272 billion dollar investment in new rail infrastructure. Yes, you read that correctly. 272 billion. Can't you see president <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hu_Jintao">Hu Jintao</a> bringing his pinky to his lips, à la Dr. Evil?

October 28 - Mike Lydon

BLOG POST

DIYcity.org - Leveraging Web 2.0 for Smarter Cities

Here in New York City, there is an incredibly popular burger stand in Madison Square Park called The Shake Shack. It's one of the touchpoints for Silicon Alley, and a great meet-up spot. The problem is that its usually insanely crowded, with an hour-long line stretching well across the park.Not to be defeated, Silicon Alley geeks created the Shake Shack Twitter Bot, which serves as a sort of chat room for people to report wait times at the Shake Shack. It's a few dozen lines of code that leverages Web 2.0 technology to make the city smarter, more efficient, and more fun.

October 28 - Anthony Townsend

FEATURE

Stop Development, Stop Traffic?

October 27 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

Business Not As Usual

Out in the bar, the world as we know it was coming to an end. In the backroom, meanwhile, smart people were trying to figure out the future of suburbia. The bar was in the lobby of a classic desert resort in Arizona. On the TV, CNN was delivering headlines of imminent doom. It was the last days of September, and the foundations of American finance were cracking under the strains of default and distrust.

October 26 - Gordon Price

BLOG POST

Energy Crisis Solved

Technology innovation – that’s all we need to solve the energy crisis! Unleash American ingenuity and we’ll be able to cope with higher energy costs. The Windmillmobile, should go a long way toward reducing petroleum consumption. It seems to work fine unless there is a strong tailwind. The engineers are still working on the sensor to fold down the windmill for garages and overpasses.

October 24 - Steven Polzin

BLOG POST

YouTube For Your Data: Many Eyes on Obama & McCain

<img src="/files/u2/20080827-clip.png" align="right" />Is it possible to condense two weeks of soaring rhetoric by politicians into a single graphic? Let's find out. In my last post I covered free online tools for <a href="/node/34623">creating information graphics</a>. Here is a look at another free online tool that can be used to easily create sophisticated visualizations and information graphics.

October 23 - Abhijeet Chavan

BLOG POST

'Death Wish' and the Life of Great American Cities

City streets need only few things to make them safe, according to the famous urbanist Jane Jacobs. She says safe streets need people walking around, places for them to go, things for them to do and other people for them to interact with. Simple as that. But Jane forgot one more thing: a sock full of quarters.

October 23 - Nate Berg

FEATURE

Curing Urbanitis – the Metropolitan Disease

The problems of today's inner cities and the problems of the suburbs are inextricably linked, says William E. Finley, author of Curing Urbanitis.

October 23 - William E. Finley

BLOG POST

Is the bad economy good for cities?

A few days ago, someone asked a question on one of my listservs about the likely impact of America’s economic crises upon urbanism. The best answer is: it depends.

October 22 - Michael Lewyn