Exclusives

BLOG POST

Urban Design After The Age of Depression

Hey, have you heard we’re all screwed? Last week Penn hosted the “Reimagining Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil” conference. If you were there, or if you read the <a href="http://americancity.org/afteroil/">liveblog</a> of the event, you saw speaker after speaker tell of the doom and gloom facing the planet. Climate change! Carbon emissions! Decaying infrastructure! Nine billion people! In the words of the classical philosopher Shawn Carter, we got 99 problems, but a bitch ain’t one. Frankly, it’s all a little depressing.

November 14 - Jeffrey Barg

FEATURE

CNU to Focus on Networks

Mike Lydon of Duany Plater-Zyberk & Company reports on the recent Transport Summit in Charlotte, NC, where presentations ranged from discussions of 'context-sensitive' road design to crafting the 2009 federal transportation bill.

November 14 - Mike Lydon

FEATURE

To Re-Imagine Cities, Re-Imagine Urban Design

Oil is running out and the climate is changing. How this impacts cities will largely be determined by how the urban design field reacts.

November 13 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

Fun with transportation statistics

A few days ago, I was looking at a regional planning document and saw something startling: an assertion that transit ridership in my region has been going down. Since transit ridership has been going up nationwide, I smelled a rat. After digging around through a big pile of statistics, I realized that there are so many different ways of measuring transit ridership that one can easily prove either that ridership is going up or that ridership is going down. Some possible measurements include:

November 11 - Michael Lewyn

BLOG POST

Unbridled Fun in an Electric Car

This weekend, I had the pleasure of taking a ride up the Pacific Coast Highway in a hot-off-the-assembly-line Tesla sportscar. While I normally fall in with the camp that thinks the focus on alternative fuel cars is distracting from the need to move people out of cars and into transit, walking and biking, I have to say, the Tesla Roadster is a beautiful piece of machinery.

November 10 - Tim Halbur

FEATURE

How Frederick Law Olmsted Got the Central Park Job

If the Frederick Law Olmsted of 1857 offered to plan and manage your city’s central park, you probably wouldn’t hire him. The 35-year-old then was a farmer, journalist and former sailor with no formal training in architecture, engineering or any related field. Though he didn’t have much technical expertise, he had great leadership skills. Those gave him the opportunity to succeed, and helped him become successful, according to Leonardo Vazquez.

November 10 - Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

BLOG POST

A Very Good Example of Very Bad Transportation Performance Evaluation

Some things are so very bad that they are good, for the sake of amusement and as examples to avoid. Of course, everybody makes mistakes, but some massive disasters involve so many errors by so many people that onlookers can also wonder, “What were they thinking?!”

November 8 - Todd Litman

BLOG POST

Live Blogging: Urban Design After the Age of Oil Symposium

I'm in philadelphia for a few days to attend the symposium "<a href="http://www.upenn.edu/penniur/afteroil/" target="_blank" title="Penn Design After Oil Conference">Re-Imagining Cities: Urban Design After the Age of Oil</a>". Along with a crew of notable writers and bloggers, I'll be writing live blog posts about the conference, all of which will be posted on the <a href="http://americancity.org/afteroil/" target="_blank" title="Next American City Design After Oil Symposium Live Blog">website of Next American City magazine</a>. Tune in to their site to follow along. This symposium has drawn hundreds of participants from around the globe to discuss the changes facing cities and communities as climate changes and resources diminish.

November 7 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

We Have Met The Enemy And He Is Us

Last week, voters in San Francisco voted against a measure to compel the city to set aside $30 million for affordable housing. Opponents of the proposal argued that "the city already has spent more than $200 million on affordable housing in the past several years, and is building more units - some affordable, some not - than anytime in recent history." (1) San Francisco is not alone; government at all levels seeks to provide housing assistance for the poor. But at the same time, government zones and rezones property to protect "property values" (2) - in other words, to cause home prices to increase over time rather than decrease. So government makes housing expensive with one arm while trying to provide affordable housing with the other.

November 6 - Michael Lewyn

BLOG POST

This Couldn’t Have Happened at a Better Time

The United States has been reborn. The election of Barack Obama has put – or reintroduced – the United States to the world stage as a beacon of hope for all people. We have proven that we believe and embody the ideals of equality and equal opportunity and that these ideals are the right of every citizen and not just a few. More importantly, this election is a ray of hope for our nation. We advanced the fight against racism to elect the first black president of the United States. Barack Obama’s election also gives hope to Americans as we witness and feel the stinging affects of the economic and housing crises, the energy crisis and two wars.

November 5 - Tamika Camille Gauvin

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