Exclusives

BLOG POST

Beaten by an ugly stick?

Journalists and bloggers love to argue over city rankings which tend to multiply faster than the tribbles on star trek. Which city is the friendliest? What cities have the nicest parks? What cities are the best places to live for mildly overweight divorcees between the ages of 32 and 34? The data is scrutinized and then how it was interpreted lambasted as ridiculous. And of course rankings are ridiculous. Cities are too complex to boil down to a few numbers.

November 26 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

Planning the Long Tail

One of the more powerful concepts to come out of the information and services economy is the <a href="http://www.thelongtail.com/">Long Tail</a>.

November 26 - Samuel Staley

FEATURE

The Need For Planning In An Aging Society

Community design, the availability of amenities, and ease of mobility have a tremendous impact on the aging population, but the 50+ community is often ignored when these elements are being planned.

November 26 - Robert Hodder

BLOG POST

Designing the way to Sustainability

Over the last few weeks, I have participated in two panels on Social and Environmental Sustainability. The first one was at the Ringling School of Art’s "Designing for Life" conference, the second was at BuildBoston where Adaptive Environments organized a day long symposium on Universal Design. In both cases, design took center stage. Design as a means towards change, and design as a business force. This is good news for advocates of Universal Design.

November 23 - Barbara Knecht

BLOG POST

Smart Growth Safety Benefits

Many families move to sprawled, automobile-dependent suburbs because they want a safe place to raise their children. They are mistaken. A smart growth community is actually a much safer and healthier place to live overall.

November 20 - Todd Litman

FEATURE

LEED-ND: Creating A More Complete Vision Of Neighborhood Sustainability

November 19 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

Libertarians v. Planners - Round II

Last year California was one of the states targeted by libertarians in the post-Kelo environment for an initiative that, if successful, would essentially outlaw takings. The country is still at near-fever pitch about eminent domain, but the really scary aspect of the legislation (modeled on Oregon's Prop 37) was that it would have virtually tied local governments' hands with regard to regulatory takings as well. In California Proposition 90 failed to pass after the New York developer who was financing the campaign stopped funding it. However, the Yes campaign had created some strange bedfellows, with poor African-Americans in particular advocating Yes votes as a way to end the destruction of their neighborhoods through badly managed redevelopment initiatives.

November 18 - Lisa Feldstein

BLOG POST

A Planning Contrarian's Reading List

Transcontinental flights are a great time to catch up on reading, and a recent flight from San Jose to Chicago inspired this blog post. As I was reading book #1 (below), I realized that a number books have been published recently that have important things to say about cities although they might be dismissed too easily as reactionary, ideological, or simply not relevant to urban planning.

November 15 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

What Happens When 250 Million Children Grow Up With Urban Planning?

<img src="/files/u4/xo.png" alt="XO-1 computer" title="XO-1 computer" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="252" height="242" align="right" />Here at Planetizen and Urban Insight, many of our efforts to serve the planning community take place on Windows and Mac computers that would, much like your own computers at your home and office (or even your sparkly new iPhone), dwarf even the most powerful machines of a generation ago. We use these computers to build websites, create maps, share data, <a href="http://www.urbaninsight.com/virtual/2ndlife0307.html">explore 3D environments</a>, design, organize databases, and lots of other tasks that can bring new worlds to life without shoveling an ounce of dirt.

November 12 - Chris Steins

BLOG POST

Light Rail Pits Planning Against Parenthood

Yes, yes. We all want to save the children. They are our most precious resource and hold the key to our future. Let them lead the way, and please, lord, don't let them get run over by a train. Fortunately, most American kids face no such danger because they are held safe in far-flung suburbs where conformity and the cocoon of the strip mall tend to their well-being. They are growing up strong and worldly behind gates and in perfect communities far from the strife of the city, where art, culture, diversity, adventure, and freedom might stimulate them just a little too much.

November 10 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

Writers Strike Opens Door For Infrastructure

The strike has begun! Negotiations have broken down between the Writers Guild of America and the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers, forcing Hollywood's TV and movie writers into a strike. What, you may be asking yourself, does this have to do with planning? Well, to put it bluntly, this strike is arguably the most important opportunity in American history for the widespread development of infrastructure and public works projects.

November 6 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

Slicing Water Planning With Okham's Razor

I first learned of <a href="http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ockham's%20razor">Okham’s Razor</a> in an undergraduate economics class. Also called the Law of Parsimony, the idea states that the simplest of two competing ideas or theories is preferable to the more complicated one.

November 6 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

Whither the Region? Good Question.

Last week I attended the <a href="http://www.dcp.ufl.edu/sacrph/conference/conference.html">Society of American City and Regional Planning History</a> (SACRPH) conference in Portland, Maine. The conference attracted a variety of notable planners and historians to my hometown for sessions on everything from radical 1970s public participation exercises to best practices in waterfront planning. At the conference, outgoing group president and historian Greg Hise gave a provocative lecture titled “Whither the Region, or Why Ought There to Be an ‘R’ in SACRPH?” In the talk he described how he believed there was a declining interest in the organization in studying regions, pointing out that the word was declining in use in the titles of papers presented at recent conferences.

November 4 - Robert Goodspeed

BLOG POST

Place Trumps Mobility Equals Paradise

Although it is sometimes difficult to recognize in day-to-day planning activities, our ultimate goal is to make the world better, that is, to help create paradise on earth. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it! There are two different and often conflicting concepts of how to create paradise. It is important that planners understand the differences between them.

November 4 - Todd Litman

BLOG POST

World Urbanists Take Manhattan - Addendum

Some of you may remember my observations in an earlier post on the wonderful event I participated in earlier this year, with New York's Forum for Urban Design. Its rare indeed to get the opportunity to discuss and debate issues of urbanism over 2 days with the chief planners for New York, Boston, London, Singapore and Toronto. Months later, I'm still thinking about some of the perspectives I debated about with my peers in these great cities. You can see my earlier comments on the discussion, titled "World Urbanists take Manhattan: Lessons learned and left" at: <a href="/node/24956">http://www.planetizen.com/node/24956</a>

November 1 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

Producing Learning vs. Receiving Instruction: Tips on How to be a Terrific Student

As education has become more expensive students wonder about what they are getting for their money. Evaluations of faculty, rankings of programs, and internet chat-room gossip all aim to find how to purchase the best value for money given a specific set of preferences. However, it is a misunderstanding to see students as primarily consumers of instruction. Rather the best students collaborate with faculty and other students to produce their own learning. What does this mean? In planning, as an applied profession, the activity of producing learning has a number of components. The following represent just a few of these mechanisms.

October 31 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

Top Ten Reasons...

Over the past three months, my girlfriend and I have made three trips to the suburbs of Miami. Twice to the Whole Foods we desperately lack on Miami Beach (Yes, Wild Oats is okay, but for us food snobs it just does not compare) and once to the brand new, soul-killing, 283,000 square foot IKEA to partially outfit our 450 square foot South Beach studio apartment.

October 30 - Mike Lydon

BLOG POST

The Results Are In: Residential TODs Produce 50% Fewer Car Trips

You drank the Kool-Aid; you know that if you link transit and land use to create transit-oriented development (TOD) the result is fewer car trips and a host of benefits. From Portland to Miami, Boston to Los Angeles, a record number of TODs are being built in the US. Yet most bankers, developers and regulators are drinking from a different cup. As a result the majority of new development adjacent to transit stops in America has been built in a manner oblivious to the fact that a rail stop is nearby.

October 29 - G.B. Arrington

FEATURE

Man At Work

Seattle activist Jim Diers takes his expertise on cultivating neighbor power 'Down Under'.

October 29 - Mark Tirpak

BLOG POST

Horsepower vs Horse Power and Sustainability

How sustainable is the internal combustion engine? The answer depends, in part, on your historical perspective. This point becomes startlingly evident in a recent article by UCLA doctoral student Eric Morris in the most recent issue of <a href="http://www.uctc.net/access/access30.shtml">Access magazine</a>. The magazine publishes accessible versions of academic research and is published by the University of California Transportation Center at Berkeley.

October 24 - Samuel Staley