Exclusives

BLOG POST

DIY Urbanism

I think many planners, in principle, agree that public involvement and grass-roots approaches to planning are necessary. The emphasis on the sheer numbers of people a plan "includes" is only one recent example of our profession’s emphasis on public involvement. But I think deep down, many colleagues see a distinctive split between involving the public and empowering them to implement. Involving is necessary and important to get any plan endorsed. But once that plan is complete, the public (residents, business owners, local stakeholders) is many times not regarded as an implementation partner except perhaps in roles of advocacy.

March 31 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

Pro-Pedestrian Policies Can Be Pro-Driver Too

Some transportation writers seem to believe that the interests of drivers and those of nondrivers are irreconcilable. For example, I just searched on google.com for websites using the terms “traffic calming” and “anti-automobile” together, and found over 60 such sites. But in fact, the interest of pedestrians in calmer, more walkable streets sometimes intersects (pun intended) with the interests of at least some motorists.

March 31 - Michael Lewyn

BLOG POST

Managing Up: Your Thesis or Project Committee as a Trial Run for the World of Work in Planning

Completing any type of academic exit project in planning school requires more than writing a proposal and executing it. It also involves assembling and then managing a committee. “Managing up” involves working with your committee to achieve what is important to you while also doing what they see as essential. It is a vital part of the exit project and terrific preparation for later life. Those who don’t learn to manage up are doomed to frustration. They likely will spend extra time making revisions that could have been avoided. Even those who are skipping the thesis in favor of a group capstone workshop or studio will need some skills in managing faculty advisors.

March 31 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

Pearl River Downturn

China's economic boom has often been compared to the West's industrialization, only running in fast-foward. IT looks as if the decline of Western industrial regions may be playing out in the China on the same accelerated time frame. BusinessWeek Asia is reporting on "<a href="http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_14/b4078078846220.htm?link_position=link1">China's Factory Blues</a>" this week on how a perfect storm of recent developments - from the decline in the US housing market to soaring commodity prices and new labor regulations - is shuttering factories in the Peal River Delta at an alarming rate.

March 31 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

Celebrate (Transportation) Diversity!

Every person is unique. Every day is unique. Every trip is unique. As a result, an efficient and equitable transportation system must be <a href="http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm65.htm">diverse</a>, so people can choose the best option for each trip. For example, today you might prefer to walk or bicycle, but tomorrow find it best to use public transit or drive.

March 28 - Todd Litman

BLOG POST

What Flavor of TEA Do You Want?

The federal law setting nation transportation funding and policy, SAFETEA-LU, is set to expire on September 30, 2009. The huge bill has regulated everything from the New Starts transit program to thousands of pork-barrel transportation projects around the country. With unprecedented concern over global warming, a new president in November, and popular frustration with congestion on both transit and highways, there may be the opportunity for a major revision in federal policy. In this post I review some of the debate so far, and outline the proposals recently released by an independent commission.

March 28 - Robert Goodspeed

BLOG POST

Two Things People Hate: Density and Sprawl

We’ve been conducting public meetings for years. And it used to be easier. Present the plan. Discuss the plan. Talk about how your plan is better for the neighborhood/community/city/region and provide the conclusion. But things have changed.

March 26 - Barbara Faga

BLOG POST

Simple Cycling Solutions

Now that the weather in Los Angeles has gone from pleasant to perfect with the subtle advent of spring, I've been spending more time risking my life atop my bicycle as I wend my way to meetings and errands. As a faithful urbanist I have little trouble convincing myself of cycling's merits, which, as former California State Health Officer Dr. <a href="http://www.planningreport.com/article/1223" target="_blank">Richard Jackson</a> likes to say, can "improve your life span, lower your blood pressure, make you better looking, improve your sex life, and save you money." Sounds good to me.

March 26 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

Best Ideas of the Week

We all know there's a lot of planning going on around the world. Much of it is poor, short-sighted and generally just no good. But there are also some really great ideas being developed and adopted, and they should be considered by cities and communities all over the world as instructive examples of good planning. Here are what I think are some of the best ideas in urban planning from the last week.

March 21 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

FCC Rules for Telcos Against Landlords

It's tough to say what the impact of a decision like this is for the US market, where there are already so many obstacles to making money on the last mile.

March 20 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

The end of Neo-Liberalism?

The Federal Reserve’s bailout (arranged liquidation to some) of Bear Stearns over the weekend seriously calls into question the headlong march toward neoliberalism that has been ascendant for the past few decades.

March 18 - Lance Freeman

BLOG POST

Miami Moves Forward With Bicycle Planning

If you think of the most bicycle-friendly cities in America, surely you do not think of Miami. In fact, if you have ever been to the "Magic City," or perhaps live here, you probably shudder at the idea of using two wheels instead of four. That may be changing.

March 18 - Mike Lydon

FEATURE

How Mechanization Can Help Cities Rethink Parking

March 17 - Shannon Sanders McDonald, AIA

BLOG POST

Economists vs. Planners? Complements, Not Substitutes

Often, planners and economists seem to be at odds. Actually, a better description would be talking past each other—literally two ships passing in the night. Planners often think economists are too narrowly focused on dollars, cents, and rational decisionmaking. Economists can’t understand why planners don’t recognize the real world of markets and why incentives matter—a lot.

March 15 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

Therapeutic Cities

I'm reposting this from my <a href="http://cities.iftf.net">Future of Cities</a> blog. You're all invited to join our conversation over there: it's sort of for urban studies what Planetizen is for urban planning and design. Some of you may know that my wife and I welcomed a little girl to the world last month (Stella!). Despite the fact that my mother was a nurse for 40 years - or perhaps because of it - I've never spent a lot of time around hospitals. In fact, like many of you I share an aversion to the centralization of sick people.

March 13 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

When Planning Matters

Why plan? That’s an important question for a planning skeptic like myself. I’m not at all convinced that conventional public urban planning has much value, despite (or because of?) spending eight years on a city planning commission. Yet, I don’t consider myself an “antiplanner”. I’m happy to leave that role to my friend and virtual colleague <a href="http://www.cato.org/people/otoole.html">Randal O’Toole</a> at the Cato Institute. (He even runs a blog called “<a href="http://www.ti.org/antiplanner/">The Antiplanner</a>”.) Urban planning has a role even though, IMO, on balance, its application has had a negative impact on communities and cities. Notably, even the free market (and Nobel Prize winning) economist <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Hayek">F.A. Hayek</a> recognized a role for planning in his classic book on political economy <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Constitution-Liberty-F-Hayek/dp/0226320847">The Constitution of Liberty</a>. The question is: what is planning’s role and, perhaps more importantly, how has this role changed or shifted in modern times?

March 12 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

Dublin Disappearing?

<img src="/files/u405/DSCN4789small.jpg" alt="" width="309" height="237" align="left" />                     Anne Street, Dublin City Center: A mixture of uses prevail in this pedestrian friendly, human-scaled street.

March 9 - Mike Lydon

FEATURE

AICP's Continuing Education Program Needs To Be Fixed

The new continuing education program set up by the American Planning Association's American Institute of Certified Planners is an unfair system that will prevent AICP-certified planners from getting affordable, high-quality education.

March 6 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

Common Problems with Proposals for the Exit Project or Thesis in Planning

In <a href="/29520" target="_blank">January</a> I explored what kind of exit paper or project students of planning should prepare, why they should write such papers, and when. This month I turn to the proposal, examining key issues any proposal writer needs to consider. As I outline below, the parts of the proposal are fairly standard. However, three areas typically trip up students working on exit projects: identifying the audience(s), framing the question, and reviewing the literature.

February 29 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

Blight in Full Color

Every city has blight – the unsightly, derelict, abandoned, disheveled, and under-utilized spaces of our urban areas. It drains the life out of neighborhoods, drives down the values of surrounding properties, and just looks really bad. So what do cities do about it? Some seize it through eminent domain for redevelopment and others offer incentives to developers to replace it with something better. Many of them, though, don’t do anything at all. But removing blight from a city is not impossible, and it doesn’t have to be an elaborate multi-party scheme or a drawn-out political process. It can be as simple as a coat of paint.

February 27 - Nate Berg