Exclusives

BLOG POST

<p>Reading news stories about planning is crucially important to the worth of planners, developers, public officials, policy makers, and anyone else who cares about the way communities form and evolve. By knowing what&#39;s going on in other places, those concerned with cities and their development will be better informed to analyze and approach the planning issues facing their own communities.

February 24 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p>Hi - I&#39;m excited about the start of this blog! I am the co-founder and editor-in-chief of <a href="http://www.americancity.org" target="_blank">The Next American City</a>, where we promote socially and environmentally sustainable economic growth for American cities and suburbs in our magazine, events, and op-eds. Looking forward to the conversations over the coming months and years on this site, and I&#39;m always open to ideas for what I should discuss here, or what our team at TNAC, including our President Seth Brown, Publisher Michelle Kuly, Editor Jess McCuan, and everyone else that makes TNAC happen, should cover. </p><p>The national media is obsessed with the story of central cities coming back. Let&#39;s put aside whether this story is real or not (one on hand, I could show you similar clippings from any of the last five decades and suburban growth rates are still much higher; on the other hand, there does seem to be a slight resurgence in many cities lately that goes beyond what we&#39;ve seen in the past). My question - from a planning standpoint - is - who cares?<br />

February 23 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

<p>About two years ago, after teaching a course at NYU&#39;s Interactive Telecommunications Program on &quot;Digitally Mediated Urban Space&quot;, I wrote an article for the architectural design journal Praxis that sought to do do two things: 1) make sense of the wide array of digital technologies that are being deployed in urban space, and 2) present a couple of places that I thought exemplified good and bad &quot;design&quot; of digital public spaces. </p><p>Recently, my research on context-aware computing - computing based on sensors and artificial intelligence - has led me to revisit this piece. Around the same time, I got a call from Lucas Graves, a friend who writes for Wired, and was doing a piece on technologies that are &quot;perpetually around the corner&quot;. Lucas was mainly interested in things like videophones, but it coincided with a turn in my research to the applications side of context-awareness: smart cities, smart places, smart homes, and smart objects. As an urban planner, I immediately gravitated to thinking about smart cities and smart places, but wondered in the back of my mind - is this something that is really happening, or just another one of those technologies that are perpetually around the corner?<br />

February 23 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

<p>As a note of introduction, I am a Master&#39;s student in Community Planning at the University of Maryland. I&#39;m happy to be part of this exciting project. </p><p><img src="/files/u10085/271989110_fe17db8a63_m.jpg" alt="MLK Memorial Library, Washington, D.C." title="MLK Memorial Library, Washington, D.C." hspace="5" vspace="5" width="240" height="189" align="right" />With a series of new urban libraries opening in U.S. cities recent years, its been said we&#39;re living through an &#39;urban library renaissance.&#39; Whether it is the <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/13300">enthusiastic reception</a> of the new Seattle library, or lending and attendance <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/22494">up in urban Canadian libraries</a>, there seems to be an increased awareness of the critical role libraries play, even in the information age.</p><p>However, no such renaissance has happened here in Washington, D.C. -- at least not yet. Here the former mayor&#39;s plans to build a new library were stalled by what the Washington Post has termed the &#39;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061501802.html">Mies Mystique</a>.&#39;</p><p>

February 22 - Robert Goodspeed

BLOG POST

<p>This is my first blog post on this network and I&#39;m happy to be here. For 1.5 years, I&#39;ve been blogging by myself at greeneconomics.blogspot.com and this is the first time that I&#39;ve been a &quot;team&quot; player. I&#39;m hoping that debates and discussions on important policy issues take place here and I&#39;ll try to do my part to not be boring!

February 21 - Matthew E. Kahn

BLOG POST

<p>A long time ago in a previous design office, I made the mistake of engaging a light rail fanatic in a debate about whether Peachtree Street in Atlanta should be adorned with a light rail line. The debate turned into a protracted email diatribe about the pros and cons of light rail and whether this specific idea made any sense.

February 21 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

<p>It should come as no surprise to anyone who has visited Downtown L.A.&#39;s Skid Row that the city has a serious homelessness problem -- with more people living on the street than any other city in the nation. A <a href="http://www.economist.com/world/na/displaystory.cfm?story_id=8672187">recent article</a> in the <em>Economist</em> focused on the recent crackdown by the city&#39;s police on the homeless population of skid row. With more and more residents moving into the area, and city officials keen to clean up downtown&#39;s streets, police chief William Bratton committed additional police officers to patrol the area to round up criminals (and presumably break up the population of street dwellers).</p>

February 21 - Christian Madera

FEATURE

With positive effects on public health, safety, and environmental quality -- walkability has become the new buzz word in planning.

February 20 - Wayne Senville

BLOG POST

Greetings Planetizen readers! I&#39;d like to welcome everyone to our new blog -- called Planetizen Interchange. This is our latest effort to provide exposure to new ideas, encourage discourse that cuts across disciplinary boundaries, and bring together allied professionals.

February 16 - Christian Madera

FEATURE

February 8 - Michael Gunder, PhD

FEATURE

Sustainability must become a primary goal of public policy if we want to ensure the long-term health of communities.

February 5 - Edward J. Jepson, Jr., Ph.D., AICP

FEATURE

January 29 - Angus Witherby

FEATURE

Airports connect us to the world, generate enormous economic benefits, and provide an important first impression of a city. It's high time the airports shed their bad rap and are planned not as nuisances, but assets.

January 22 - Ryan N. Hall

FEATURE

From green building to the housing bubble, the editors of Planetizen review the most talked about stories of 2006.

January 8 - Planetizen Team

FEATURE

January 4 - Ashwani Vasishth

FEATURE

Though the program has good intentions, APA's proposal for mandatory continuing education could just encourage more planners to attend the National Planning Conference than to actually get more training.

January 2 - Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

FEATURE

Keeping track of the weird things that occur in the planning and government world -- from Barry Manilow to brothels -- isn't really necessary. But someone should do it anyways.

December 28 - Rick Bishop, AICP

FEATURE

December 18 - Heather MacDonald

FEATURE

As part of a monthly series, we present a summary and analysis of some of the most interesting news to appear on Planetizen over the month of November 2006. This is the transcript of an audio segment that originally aired on the nationally syndicated radio program "Smart City".

December 11 - Nate Berg

FEATURE

Disaster recovery expert Robert B. Olshansky reports on the latest planning effort in New Orleans.

December 11 - Robert B. Olshansky