Exclusives

BLOG POST

Beijing's traffic nightmare and public transit

BEIJING--When I first learned that I wouldn't be able to rent a car in Beijing, I was disappointed. That's how I usually break away from the business "bubble" to learn something about a city. But, it didn't take more than an hour to realize that I was better off with a local driver than tackling it myself. Driving habits, combined with roads choking with pedestrians, cars, buses, and taxis, convinced me I needed to leave the driving to a "pro".

May 9 - Samuel Staley

FEATURE

Urban Planning and the Informal Sector in Developing Countries

Rather than seeking to eliminate the presence of the informal sector, urban planning should seek to accommodate this important component of urban economies.

May 7 - Deden Rukmana

BLOG POST

Atlantic Yards and the Perils of Community Benefit Agreements

Just east of downtown Brooklyn on a 22 acre site Forest City Ratner is proposing a mega-project that would transform the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) Vanderbilt rail yards and a few adjacent blocks into 6,430 units of housing, 336,000 feet of office space, 247,000 feet of retail space, a hotel and an arena that would be the new home of the NBA New Jersey Nets. Like almost any mega-project proposed in a dense city like New York, Atlantic Yards is raising the ire of many. In this case, however, the names and roles of the usual suspects have changed. At least some view the developer as a savior and champion of the inner city poor, while many of the project’s opponents are viewed as reactionary elites only concerned about the potential loss of their parking spaces. This reversal of protagonists is due in large part to the Community Benefits Agreement (CBA) negotiated between the developer and several community groups.

May 7 - Lance Freeman

BLOG POST

Smart Growth, Bad Air

Locating residential development closer to city centers comes with a price: increased exposure to air pollutants.

May 3 - Diana DeRubertis

BLOG POST

Who’s Watching the Beach?

It’s not just those buff lifeguards. Most coastal and Great Lakes states have a coastal zone management program. And not only are the coastal zone managers watching the beach, they are watching what’s being built in their communities. In fact, in recent interviews of coastal zone managers, 56 out of 58 said growth was the top pressure on coastal resources in their state.

May 2 - Anonymous

FEATURE

Minimizing The Effects Of The Kelo Decision

While many local governments have been utilizing the eminent domain powers granted to them by the Kelo case, the American Planning Association hasn't been successful in finding ways to limit the decision's negative effects. But as Richard May, FAICP explains, there are many ways to reduce any damage done.

April 30 - Richard May, FAICP

BLOG POST

Comfort Versus Speed

Most people that I know want to act responsibly, but when it comes to daily travel decisions they often choose driving over more resource-efficient but less comfortable and convenient alternative modes, such as walking, cycling and public transportation. As a result, they feel guilty, and communities suffer from problems such as congestion, infrastructure costs, consumer costs, accidents, energy consumption, and pollution emissions.

April 26 - Todd Litman

BLOG POST

Pulling Up Stakes On The 'Good Old Days'

The 1950’s and 1960’s were boom times for planning and building in the northeastern United States. Projects were designed and built seemingly overnight. For those who idolize Edmund Bacon (Philadelphia's director of city planning from 1949 to 1970) and Robert Moses (New York City’s master builder from 1924 to 1968), that was the time to plan and design and implement and build --quickly.

April 26 - Barbara Faga

FEATURE

Paved Paradigm

Libertarian biases and assumptions keep Reason Magazine authors stuck in traffic.

April 26 - Michael Dudley

BLOG POST

The Importance of Beauty: A Personal and Professional Perspective

The countless issues and debates about the nature of city-building need powerful voices within the broader public.

April 25 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

Thom Mayne's inspiration

The new <a href="http://www.pritzkerprize.com/164/pritzker2005/sanfranciscofederalbuilding.htm">San Francisco Federal Building</a>, designed by <a href="http://www.morphosis.net/">Morphosis</a> starchitect <a href="http://www.greatbuildings.com/architects/Thom_Mayne_-_Morphosis.html">Thom Mayne</a>, opened earlier this year. It's visible from the windows of our kitchen at work, so I see it at least five times a day, every time I make myself a decaf double americano. And I knew it looked familiar. Today I finally figured it out. The building:<img src="/files/u10403/14mayn_CA1_650.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="375" /> And what must have been the inspiration: <img src="/files/u10403/crawler_copy1.jpg" alt="" width="475" height="219" /> (Oh, come on. It's the Sandcrawler from Star Wars. The nerds got it.)

April 24 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

Sustainable Development Needs To Embrace Technology

I've been spending a lot of time over the past couple of years examining the planning literature on sustainable development. Sustainable development, as a concept, remains vague. For those interested, take a look at my recent article in the journal <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&contentId=1562561">Property Management</a>.

April 24 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

If You Lived In This Inner-Ring Suburb, You'd Be Home By Now

This week, a few stories circulated around our office that generated some discussion. One was a piece in The New Yorker by Nick Paumgarten on commuting in America entitled <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_paumgarten" target="_blank">"There and Back Again"</a>. The tease at the beginning sums up the entire piece: "People may endure miserable commutes out of an inability to weigh their general well-being against quantifiable material gains." In this story, the writer accompanies commuters in Manhattan and Atlanta while attempting to understand the life of an "extreme commuter."

April 24 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

Mobility: Shanghai and the Car of the Future

It's increasingly clear that the future of the car in Asia, and possibly Africa and the Middle East as well, is going to be shaped as much by what happens in the Shanghai region as Western cities were by Detroit in the 20th century. <blockquote>Last week General Motors (GM) unveiled a hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered version of its Chevrolet Volt concept, a family of electric cars that get a portion of their energy from being plugged into the electrical grid. The first version, announced in January, married plug-in electric drive to a gasoline or ethanol generator that can recharge the battery.

April 24 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

It's Been a Great Week for City Planning Here on the East Coast

It's been a great week for city planning here on the East Coast. The American Planning Association's 99th National Conference held in Philadelphia drew more than 6,000 attendees, a fact noticed by Philadelphia Inquirer writer Inga Saffron in her April 13th column titled "Welcome, Welcome City Planners," where she took the opportunity to draw local and national lessons from the event. The APA opened with Robert Kennedy's address on environmental planning and closed with an exploration of the legacy of Edmund Bacon (Philadelphia's director of city planning from 1949-1970), but more about that later.

April 23 - Eugenie Birch

BLOG POST

When will Earth Day come for the APA?

Typically I have fallen into the “every day is earth day” camp. But this year, April 22nd offered a moment for reflection, although of a more professional than personal nature. Green is everywhere these days – from Vanity Fair to the Wall Street Journal. The decades long debate about the validity of climate change appears to be over – as the discussion seems to be quickly shifting to either: a) how do we make it less dramatic, or b) how we prepare for the inevitable.

April 23 - Walker Wells

BLOG POST

Planning Lessons from an Olympic Beauty Contest

Last week, my home city, Los Angeles, lost out to Chicago for the right to represent the United States in the international competition to host the 2016 Olympics. Since an Olympic city selection represents the ultimate inter-urban beauty contest – dare I say, a kind of urban “International Idol” – what did this process tell us about the state of urban planning in two of America’s largest cities?

April 23 - Ken Bernstein

BLOG POST

The Market for Transit Oriented Development: Niche or Mainstream?

In 1996, my professor at the University of Colorado introduced a new concept – Transit Oriented Development (TOD). An emerging group of professionals that included New Urbanists were advocating the idea, but few on-the-ground examples existed. The debate within the planning field during those years focused on the marketability of a mixed-use product. TODs would have to overcome large obstacles. Banks were hesitant to finance an “unproven” product. Developers wondered if they could pass on higher construction costs to buyers, retailers questioned if there would be enough customers to fill their stores, and planners questioned if TODs would lead to changes in travel behavior. A decade later, many continue to ask the same questions about TOD although the difference today is that there are many successful examples to showcase and study. TOD is gaining popularity and widespread appeal but an important unanswered question remains – will TOD remain a niche product or will it become a mainstream development concept?

April 23 - John Renne

BLOG POST

Beauty and Function? We Should Expect Both

On the Sunday that the April Nor’easter dumped the second highest rainfall ever recorded in Central Park, I waded to the New York Auto Show at the Jacob Javits Center. I wasn’t there to see the mighty floor show of preening cars inside the convention center, I went to see the Taxi ’07 exhibition outside on the wind and rain swept lower roadway. For anyone who has tried to hail a taxi in a Manhattan rainstorm, visiting the exhibition on that Sunday raised a familiar feeling: nearly a dozen yellow taxis in sight, not one of which was going to pick me up and whisk me away to dry land.

April 23 - Barbara Knecht

FEATURE