Exclusives

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">With vacations upon us many students have been asking me what they should read over the winter break. Certainly it is possible to catch up with planning <a href="/node/31384" target="_blank">classics </a>and <a href="/node/33755" target="_blank">thought-provoking books</a><a href="/node/33755" target="_blank"> </a>and several earlier blogs have highlighted these options. However,for those wanting to escape and learn something as well, a number of mystery authors write books that both investigate crimes and evoke a sense of place. The following list highlights just some of this range—there are hundreds more of course (and if you scroll for the bottom you will find links to other lists).

January 4 - Ann Forsyth

FEATURE

January 4 - Vinayak Bharne

BLOG POST

<p> Every so often, I read a blog post or an article talking about the trade-off between &quot;mobility&quot; and making places more accessible to nonmotorists.  The hidden assumption behind such statements is that &quot;mobility&quot; means cars going as fast as possible.  So if every street is an eight-lane highway with cars going 70 miles per hour, overall social &quot;mobility&quot; is therefore high.  </p>

December 31 - Michael Lewyn

BLOG POST

<p> Very snowy holiday greetings from Finland, everyone!  While here visiting my in-laws and friends, I wanted to take a quick moment and share an interesting observation about the way Finns handle the incessant layers of snow that blanket their chilly winter country.  It seems that aside from limited access highways and some primary arterials, the Finnish standard for snow treatment is to plow to a reasonable depth, but not worry too much about an inch or two of snow base layer covering streets.  Some streets get sand treatment as well, but salt is used very, very sparingly. </p>

December 31 - Ian Sacs

FEATURE

December 31 - Nate Berg

FEATURE

It will take a long time for the US to embrace pedestrians, bicycling, and electric carts as substitutes for cars in our communities. And yet an inevitable change is coming that will significantly increase environmental quality, and restore real community and economic viability. Changing legislation, master planning, and the development of car-reduced and car-free communities will move us forward, writes Greg Ramsey.

December 28 - Greg Ramsey

BLOG POST

<p> Even more so than usual, few people will be receiving buildings as gifts this season.  They&#39;re too expensive, you can’t return them, and, notwithstanding Barbie’s Dream House, they probably won&#39;t fit under your tree.  But still, this Yuletide affords ample opportunity to take stock of the works that have arisen in this most momentous of decades.  </p>

December 23 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: 12pt; line-height: 115%"><span style="font-family: Calibri">A friend of mine who&#39;s a biophysicist popped in to see me the other day. <span> </span>He was all excited and showed me his “patent pending” letter for his newest invention.

December 23 - Steven Polzin

FEATURE

Understanding the needs of ethnic minorities is critical for contemporary working planners, says Leonardo Vasquez, AICP/PP.

December 21 - Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

BLOG POST

<p> I apologize for self-promotion but you have to admit that parts of this interview posted here at <a href="http://www.clevelandfed.org/Forefront/2009/12/ff_20091216_07.cfm">http://www.clevelandfed.org/Forefront/2009/12/ff_20091216_07.cfm</a> are funny and mildly thought provoking!  This interview focuses on the causes and consequences of &quot;green cities&quot;. </p> <p class="interview_q"> Here is an excerpt:  </p> <p class="interview_q"> Richter: On your blog, you noted that you can buy 100 homes in Detroit for the price of one in Westwood [where UCLA is located]. Is that a good deal? </p>

December 18 - Matthew E. Kahn

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-family: Calibri"><span style="font-size: small">Last week I posted a blog, “</span><span style="font-size: 7.5pt; line-height: 115%"><a href="/node/42026"><strong>Win-Win Transportation Emission Reduction Strategies: Good News for Copenhagen</strong></a>”</span><span><span style="font-size: small"> which described emission reduction strategies that also help achieve economic and social objectives. I’ve continued doing research on the subject and made some additonal discoveries that I can report on now.</span></span></span> </p>

December 17 - Todd Litman

FEATURE

The U.S. needs a new model for denser living, says John Stillich of the Sustainable Urban Development Association. 'Newburg' is SUDA's proposed solution to the problem.

December 17 - John Stillich

BLOG POST

<p> Hey, Las Vegas. Good to see you! Tough break about all those foreclosures... But, hey, I hear you&#39;ve got a new mega project opening up. That&#39;s cool! I bet those other broke cities are super jealous. Yeah, this new project&#39;s gonna bring you back to glory, eh? Oh, what&#39;s that? What did you just call it? CityCenter? The Capital of the New World? An urban community? <br /> <br /> Let me stop you right there.<br />

December 16 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p> You may have noticed that over the past few years we&#39;ve learned a lot more about how the brain works. This is mostly due to advances in functional neuroimaging (fMRI), which makes brain scanning much less onerous and dangerous (no radiation involved). Researchers are using this new access to the brain to send it through various puzzles and thoughts and seeing where and how the brain reacts.  </p> <p> Josh Greene is an assistant professor at Harvard, and he has used his research to explore questions of moral judgement and decisionmaking. One puzzle he&#39;s looked at is called the &quot;Trolley Problem.&quot; Here&#39;s the setup:  </p>

December 16 - Tim Halbur

FEATURE

December 14 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p> Conventional wisdom dictates that middle-class families would find urban schools more tempting if we only “fixed the schools”- a concept that implies that urban public schools are simply unable to educate anyone, because they are either horribly underfunded (in the liberal version of this claim) or horribly mismanaged (in the conservative version). </p>

December 12 - Michael Lewyn

BLOG POST

<p> The display of yellow ribbons in remembrance of friends and family serving far away goes back hundreds of years. Dr. Gavin Finley has an <a href="http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://endtimepilgrim.org/yellowriboak.jpg&amp;imgrefurl=http://endtimepilgrim.org/yellowrib.htm&amp;usg=__Ksf0tpiIRNuBejziPwNGMPQdJfw=&amp;h=384&amp;w=248&amp;sz=54&amp;hl=en&amp;start=13&amp;um=1&amp;tbnid=naMNZ7Kvgpah_M:&amp;tbnh=123&amp;tbnw=79&amp;prev=/images%3Fq%3Dyellow%2Bribbons%2Baround%2Btree%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1T4SUNA_enUS286US270%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1">interesting website </a>on the history. The American Folklore Center at The Library of Congress has more intriguing history and also cites the 1949 John Wayne and Joanne Dru film, <em>She Wore a Yellow Ribbon</em>. </p>

December 11 - Dwight Merriam

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: 'Calibri','sans-serif'"> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-family: Calibri">Here is good news for anybody looking for smart ways to reduce climate change. </span><a href="http://www.vtpi.org/wwclimate.pdf"><span style="font-family: Calibri; color: #0000ff">&quot;Win-Win&quot; transportation emission reduction strategies</span></a><span style="font-family: Calibri"> can provide substantial energy conservation and emission reductions in ways that also help achieve economic and social objectives.</span> </p>

December 10 - Todd Litman

BLOG POST

<p> A recent event organized by <a href="http://www.good.is" target="_blank" title="Good Magazine">Good Magazine</a>, <a href="http://www.sheridanhawkes.com" target="_blank" title="Sheridan/Hawkes Collaborative">Sheridan/Hawkes Collaborative</a> and <a href="http://www.popsiclesforeveryone.org/" target="_blank" title="The Public Studio">The Public Studio</a> brought together about 30 civic-minded designers, planners and architects to come up with some ways to improve the urban environment of Los Angeles. It was a big question to tackle in one afternoon, with a huge array of possible solutions. The crowd was split up into five separate groups and surprisingly, each came up with a similar answer: taco trucks. OK, not taco trucks specifically, but the essence of taco trucks and what they bring to the city.

December 10 - Nate Berg

FEATURE

Vacant properties are considered blight instead of potential, argues John Kromer of the Fels Institute. By acting strategically and thinking smaller, officials can revitalize their cities and attract new, more stable investment.

December 10 - John Kromer