Exclusives

BLOG POST

Schizophrenic Policy Makers Pursue Buying Economic Development

My local community recently got into political spat as the city, county and state negotiated the terms of a deal to attract a major corporation to bring a facility to the community. In the interest of high-quality growth, tens of millions in dollars and various perks were offered to attract a very well-heeled corporate player. In the meantime, Floridians frustrated with the inability of government to be willing or able to keep up with growth in terms of providing the requisite infrastructure; sewer, water, transportation, etc., increased the pressure on governments to have new development pay for growth rather than having it increase the tax burden on existing residents. Let's see:

April 4 - Steven Polzin

BLOG POST

A Glimpse of California's Past

Travel a few miles outside of Santa Barbara and you’ll encounter a truly rare scene – rare for coastal California in the year 2007, that is.

April 3 - Diana DeRubertis

BLOG POST

So Many Cities, So Much Mediocrity

Here's an item that should be more than enough to make you spew your morning latte all over the Starbucks: In a <a href="http://www.mercerhr.com/summary.jhtml?idContent=1173105" target="_blank">survey</a>, conducted last year and released yesterday by Mercer Consulting, ranking the top 50 global cities by quality of life, not a single American city cracks the top half. Zero.

April 3 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

New Urbanism is great, if you're rich

So I went to see two new New Urbanist communities this weekend - <a href="http://www.warwick-grove.com">Warwick Grove</a> in the Mid-Hudson Valley, about 50 miles from NYC, and <a href="http://www.sharbell.com/html/plainsborovillagecenter.html">Plainsboro Village Center</a> in central N.J.

April 2 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

Sleepless in Shanghai #3 - The Future of Mobility

I'm just back from China. Waht a week. Among other amazing experiences, we got to go for a ride in one of only 19 GM Sequel hydrogen minivans. The car is remarkably similar to a regular vehicle, except for a small computer screen on the dash that provides a detailed diagnostic readout on the hydrogen fuel cell stack. That's my colleague Mike Liebhold of the Institute for the Future behind the wheel.

April 2 - Anthony Townsend

FEATURE

Landscape Architecture: Imagine That

Rodney Swink, past president of the American Society of Landscape Architects, celebrates the role of landscape architecture in shaping the built and natural environment.

April 2 - Rodney L. Swink

BLOG POST

Blade Runner Watch: Fashion

<img src="/files/u10403/images_0.jpg" width="114" height="50" align="left" />Well, it's not quite urban-theory-related, but my brilliant colleague Nancy Miller pointed me to the invasion of the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/">Blade Runner</a> aesthetic into the fashion world this year. At left, that's Darryl Hannah, playing the kooky sexbot <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000435/">Pris</a> in the movie. And here's the work of designer Peter Christian, from the blog <a href="http://blog.zoozoom.com/">ZooZoom</a>: <img src="/files/u10403/blastOff-email_0.jpg" width="500" height="352" /> See what I'm saying? More after the jump.

March 29 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

Is Vancouver Still a City by Design?

Vancouver has earned many titles and nick-names on its way to becoming an international model of urban livability. One used frequently is the title “city by design”. The language of the title is deliberately specific, particularly the choice of the word “by”. A city by design is one that has taken public or civic responsibility for its physical development. A city that has embraced the value of design, both in the broad strokes and in the details, in the achievement of its public goals, be they livability, sustainability, civic beauty or economic success.

March 29 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

The Quiet Evils Of America's 'Favorite' Buildings

The American Institute of Architects recently threw its authority behind a list of America's <a href="http://www.aia150.org/afa150_default.html" target="_blank">"favorite architecture,"</a> ranking three centuries of indigenous design one to 150 specimins. The resulting menu, culled by survey, of buildings, bridges, monuments, and other solid things amounts to a joyous celebration and a remarkable commentary on America's embrace of beauty. It also reinforces the desperation that arises when aesthetics and nationalism mix.

March 29 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

Why should planners care about the Farm Bill?

Every five to seven years, Congress votes to reauthorize one of the largest and most significant legislative measures affecting land use policies in the U.S - the Farm Bill. This year, Congress will debate the omnibus legislation that defines not only America’s agricultural policy, but determines funding priorities for rural development, food and nutrition assistance, energy and environmental issues.

March 28 - Lisa Feldstein

BLOG POST

Sleepless in Shanghai, #2

Two moments in this trip bring home the pace of change here. Sunday morning, 8am, I wake up in the Zhongshan Park section of west-central Shanghai. Head out into the backlanes of the superblock behind the hotel and construction on a high-rise gated apartment building is already at full tilt. Two other construction projects intitimate in my life... a dorm across from our apartment in Manhattan, and a restaurant next to the Institute in Palo Alto, are definitely not on the same aggressive shifts.Next moment, Wednesday evening 11:18pm at our hotel in Pudong, I glance out the window before bed and see a line of cement mixers 10-12 deep waiting to unload at the construction site across the street.

March 28 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

Sleepless in Shanghai

I'm in Shanghai this week conducting workshops for two of my Fortune 500 clients looking at the future of mobility in the Shanghai region and Chinese cities more broadly. If you've never been to China, get on a plane now and come here. You will never think about cities or urbanization the same way again.Shanghai has created a city larger than Manhattan in less than 20 years, and is set to create another in the next 15. The earth literally sags under the weight of the new buildings, as they push the former rural swampland into the earth.

March 27 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

Where Do I Live and Where Do I Park?

As one of my favorite colleagues says, all anyone ever cares about at any public meeting is “where do I live and where do I park?” Public process, in short, asks people to accept changes to their homes and lives. And people generally do not like change.

March 26 - Barbara Faga

FEATURE

Barriers To Planning: Lessons From Katrina

Evacuating people after Hurricane Katrina revealed chronic shortcomings of local and regional evacuation planning. The barriers that hindered efforts in New Orleans apply not only to evacuation planning, but to planning in general.

March 26 - Thomas W. Sanchez, Marc Brenman

BLOG POST

Physical Effects Of The Declining Housing Market

This week, the Economist’s cover story, "The trouble with the housing market," details the downward-spiraling "subprime" mortgage market and its potential effects on the U.S. economy. The collapsing market certainly poses problems to Wall Street traders and taxpayers in general, but what about the physical toll it's taking on our cities? Abandoned, foreclosed homes now increasingly dot the nation's inner ring suburbs, helping spread neighborhood decline out from inner cities, while developers build more homes farther into the urban periphery.

March 25 - David Gest

BLOG POST

What's In A Name?

How important are the names we use? As Shakespeare said, "What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet." I’ve been struck by this thought recently as I’ve been considering the myriad of organizations and stakeholders trying to have their particular term for stormwater management techniques be more widely adopted in the nomenclature.

March 25 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

'Historic', Not 'Hysterical': Preservation Goes Mainstream

Historic preservation still suffers from an image problem, even in the face of all available evidence. Some critics still have the misimpression that preservationists are fussy (even fusty) antiquarians. When I hear complaints about the requirements of historic review commissions, I’m amazed that the griping is often accompanied by a crack about the local “hysterical society.” Even the Wikipedia entry on “historic preservation” contains the passage, “‘historic preservation’ is sometimes referred to as ‘hysterical preservation’.” (And, of course, Wikipedia is ever-infallible). </spa

March 23 - Ken Bernstein

BLOG POST

Candor on Canadian Planning Departments and Planning Schools

Since this is my first blog, let me introduce myself. My name is Brent Toderian. In 2006 I was appointed the City of Vancouver, British Columbia’s Director of Planning. Before that I was the Manager of Centre City Planning and Design for the City of Calgary, Alberta. I am a founding member of the Council for Canadian Urbanism (CanU) which is discussed below. I look forward to your comments on this and future posts.

March 22 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

An Outbreak Of Beauty and Happiness?

In spite of my sense that we are heading pell mell into the gloom of global warming, catastrophic conflict and hopeless mediocrity, I’ve noticed a hopeful trend. Beauty and happiness have been rehabilitated from irrelevant to necessary. It may not be an avalanche, but proponents are showing up in unusual places: a book by an environmental conservationist, another by an historian philosopher, and a Mother Jones article about the economy. Can this portend a trend?

March 22 - Barbara Knecht

BLOG POST

The Unified New Orleans Recovery Plan Nears Completion

As I said in my last posting, the main, if not the only, topic of discussion in planning circles in New Orleans these days is recovery planning from Hurricane Katrina. A year and a half after the storm, we are getting close to having a recovery plan. In late January the Citywide Strategic Recovery and Rebuilding Plan, otherwise known as the “Unified New Orleans Plan” (UNOP), was presented to the New Orleans City Planning Commission (CPC), of which I am the Chair. The CPC has held several public hearings on the plan and we have at least one more scheduled.

March 22 - Anonymous