Exclusives

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">The planning profession’s ambivalence toward Houston has always been a little frustrating. In part, the profession’s attitude is understandable. Houston hasn’t embraced planning’s conventions, so why should the profession embrace Houston? </span> </p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">Fair enough. But the downside is losing the opportunity to look at core issues and problems from a completely different lens. This is especially true when it comes to housing development where Houston performs remarkably better than its peers.</span> </p>

March 20 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

We Americans love a discount. Wal-Mart and the discount retail boom are proof enough of that. What we love even more, though, is free stuff. Just slap the word &quot;free&quot; before almost anything and we&#39;ll line up.<br /> <br /> This mentality represents some challenges for cities, but also some opportunities. The challenge is that if people don&#39;t have to pay for something, they probably won&#39;t. And the opportunity is that if people don&#39;t have to pay for something, they&#39;re way more likely to want it. Let&#39;s think of this concept in terms of three innately American traditions: pancakes, mobility, and beer.<br />

March 19 - Nate Berg

FEATURE

March 19 - Judy Chang

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: small"> <p> Our world and our cities, would be so very different, if all of the Directors of Traffic thought like Niels Tørsløv of Copenhagen - especially if, like Niels, all such Directors were trained as landscape architects. What if the &quot;traffic problem&quot; was about too many bikes, and the &quot;parking problem&quot; was about how to deal with so many bikes overtaking the public spaces and sidewalks? </p>

March 16 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

<p> High Speed Rail (HSR) is the favorite moniker to describe the new era of trains envisioned and partially down-paid by the recent stimulus.  The idea, linking major regional corridors via fast trains that rival door-to-door times for air travel and put highways to shame, is a powerful elixir to the crunch of congested highways and airways that represented a failed – or to be more accurate, incomplete - twentieth century vision to satiate America&#39;s transport needs.  Perhaps this vision, if implemented with undeterred gusto, can renew our perception of travel and convenience while simultaneously reinvigorating our gagged transportation system. </p>

March 16 - Ian Sacs

FEATURE

March 16 - Peter Gertler

BLOG POST

<p> There’s just one problem with academia. Sometimes it can be so … academic. </p> <p> In the interest of getting out into the world, I’m writing this post from Nawlins (nee New Orleans), where 16 other Penn planners and I are spending our weeklong spring break <strike>doffing our tops for beads and booze</strike> doing pro bono city planning work. For most of us, it’s been nothing short of a paradigm shift—and the week ain’t over yet. </p>

March 12 - Jeffrey Barg

BLOG POST

<p> If you’re working in the transportation industry, you know there are basically two ways to contribute to the amazing shift in perspective going on in our country towards livable streets: Advocacy or Consultancy.  On one hand, you can work with a non-profit organization or advocacy group to push the envelope and make a stir.  This is the perceived over-the-top approach because the norm is so far away from where things could really be.  For example, in a saner world, the Critical Mass bike rides that have long rubbed New York City Police the wrong way would not be necessary because thousands of bicyclists would already be respected and given appropriate space on city streets.  But someone has to scream “Wake Up!”  On the other hand, you can choose to work “from the inside

March 12 - Ian Sacs

BLOG POST

Livable streets proponents look back on 2008 as the year some of the movement’s best laid plans became mainstream. Bicycle sharing systems launched in both Washington DC and Montreal. Auto-dependent Charlotte saw its LYNX light rail surpass 2025 ridership projections, while Seattle also beat ridership projections on its snazzy new Streetcar. And New York City and Portland continued to reclaim space for less auto-centric uses—witnessing 35% and 25% growth respectively in bicycle mode share.

March 11 - Mike Lydon

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; line-height: normal" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Calibri">Is a $50,000 annual income wealth or poverty in North America? By historical or international standards such an income should be considered wealthy and luxurious, but most people I know consider it poverty because of the high cost of living. </span> </p>

March 10 - Todd Litman

BLOG POST

In January 1992, The New York Times Sunday Magazine ran a piece by Columbia’s Nicholas Lemann, titled “The Myth of Community Development”.  It was then - timed to provoke critical thinking about the Clinton Administration’s vanilla urban policy of Empowerment Communities (EZ/EC) - a poignant evaluation of community development, and it asked hard questions.<br /> <br /> Questions about the capacity of local organizations, the wisdom of economic development efforts in the hands of anemic CDCs.  Neither wholly right nor wrong, the piece put on the table a necessary skunk:  was it sensible to try to revitalize the inner city using the tools and thinking then at hand?<br />

March 10 - Charles Buki

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-size: x-small">This month&#39;s Broadway &quot;opening&quot; proposal is as much a clarion to the new thinking of public street space in America as it is a gift to the people of New York City.<br />

March 10 - Ian Sacs

FEATURE

March 9 - Alex Krieger

BLOG POST

<span><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman"> </span></span><span><span style="font-size: small"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">As the economy continues to lumber through the most protracted period of recession since the early 1980s, the financial sector has received the brunt of the blame. It’s been easy for the planning profession to distance themselves from what seem at first to be macroeconomic trends. That view, however, is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold.

March 7 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

Finding a first full-time “real” job in planning seems a daunting task at present. However, cities are growing, infrastructure is being funded, and there will be jobs for planners. The following tips can help one navigate the market. <p class="MsoNormal"> <em>Be prepared to go to Kansas</em>. By this I mean that there are certain places much loved by young planners—New York, Boston, San Francisco—and these are not the best places to start looking for early planning jobs. Sure they have them. For low pay. Where you’ll find yourself at the very bottom of the totem pole with years of photocopying ahead of you before you make it to the zoning counter.

March 7 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><span style="font-size: small">Having become something of a junkie who overdoses on political and economic news, it is only natural that I try to help justify that time investment by scouring the news for tidbits that have professional relevance.<span>  </span>Just this past week several things have come across my monitor that have made me reflect.<span>  </span></span></span> </p>

March 6 - Steven Polzin

BLOG POST

<p> Once again, US Air (a.k.a. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/dcedrj" target="_blank" title="US SCARE">US-SCARE</a>) has made my life difficult. I was hoping to fly back from Myrtle Beach, SC to Denver yesterday and they cancelled my flight (Myrtle Beach is where the <a href="http://www.csc.noaa.gov/geotools/" target="_blank" title="GeoTools Conferencce">GeoTools</a> conference was and a meeting of the Ecosystem Based Management Tools <a href="http://www.ebmtools.org/" target="_blank" title="EBM Tools Network">Network</a>).  <br />

March 6 - Ken Snyder

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 5pt 0in" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">A new design competition thinks it can.</span></span> </p> <p style="margin: 5pt 0in" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">In a recent post, I discussed the value of open design competitions in strengthening a city&#39;s &quot;culture of design&quot;. I explained how Vancouver, often described as a <em>city by design</em> but in past years perhaps lacking a competition skill-set, is seeking to strengthen that culture, albeit by small steps and grass-roots efforts thus far. Here&#39;s the link - you might want to <a href="/node/37189" target="_blank">read that post first</a>. </span></span> </p>

March 3 - Brent Toderian

FEATURE

A new design competition is seeking solutions to L.A.'s transportation problems. But the real solution may not have anything to do with transportation at all.

March 2 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">Architecture is certainly headed for its own version of the Big Bang. A density of firms are simmering with scarce backlog, delinquent collections, looming layoffs, high overhead, low morale as weakened management relies on a foggy stimulus package to forestall an explosion of great magnitude. After the inevitable, our profession will reconstitute based on a new chemistry.

March 1 - Rick Abelson