Exclusives

BLOG POST

A Good Wall Is Hard to Find

It's like something out of a Flannery O'Connor story. The setting is the small town of Natchez, Miss., which was built on an unstable, water-soluble bluff. An entire street, Clifton Avenue, collapsed about 20 years ago. Swallowed up. A few years back—in 1995, to be exact, Sen. Trent Lott urged Congress to shore up the bluff to save not just people—two women died in a 1980 street collapse—but "to protect these historically significant properties and to prevent potential loss of lives," as he put it.

September 18 - Margaret Foster

FEATURE

When A McMansion Isn't Large Enough

With Americans living in ever larger homes, the growth of the self storage industry demonstrates the irony of an American solution to an American problem -- overabundance.

September 17 - Sriram Khe

BLOG POST

Las Vegas' Hidden Monorail

<img src="/files/u4/lvmonorail2.jpg" border="0" alt="Los Vegas Monorail" title="Los Vegas Monorail" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="362" height="362" align="right" />I was visiting Las Vegas for a wedding and, rather than blow my salary on the blackjack table, I was eager to try the new <a href="http://www.lvmonorail.com/">Las Vegas Monorail</a>. As the world's only city-scale example of a technology that was once envisioned as the future of mass transit, the Las Vegas Monorail has seven stops along a route that roughly parallels Las Vegas Strip, with stations connected to major hotels.

September 16 - Chris Steins

BLOG POST

The Politics of NIMBY

The following came through on a planning list serve, and I thought it raised several very provocative points that speak to the core of how we plan in the U.S. <blockquote>“I heard, though I cannot remember the source, of a municipality that countered predictable neighborhood opposition to a higher density TOD proposal by broadening the review process to the whole community. I believe that the actual adjacent property owners were deemed to have a conflict of interest: i.e. their backyard versus overall better transit and housing opportunities for the entire town.

September 14 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

Won't You Conserve? Pretty Please?

During my commute this morning, one of the segments on the piped-in TV news that repeats endlessly on the bus mentioned that the City of Long Beach, California, had decided put new water restrictions in effect due to an impending water shortage. The city is advising residents to refrain from watering their lawns and taking long showers – while urging restaurants to only serve water to diners who request it. According to the <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-water14sep14,0,3097443.story?coll=la-home-center">Los Angeles Times story</a> on the new restrictions, residents and businesses who don’t heed the call to conserve will receive a warning from officials, while repeat offenders may face a fine.

September 14 - Christian Madera

FEATURE

Building Connections

One citizen planner's journey across the United States provides a glimpse at how stronger connections between people and places can create better communities.

September 10 - Wayne Senville

BLOG POST

Cycling The Contours of Miami

<font face="georgia, bookman old style, palatino linotype, book antiqua, palatino, trebuchet ms, helvetica, garamond, sans-serif, arial, verdana, avante garde, century gothic, comic sans ms, times, times new roman, serif"> It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. ~Ernest Hemingway

September 9 - Mike Lydon

BLOG POST

Terrorism, Gay Marriage, and...Land Use(!)

This week <a href="http://salon.com" target="_blank">Salon.com</a> published a <a href="http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/09/03/richardson_qa/index.html?source=rss&aim=yahoo-salon" target="_blank">remarkable interview</a> with a contender for the White House. The candidate didn't offer the solution to stabilizing Iraq, strengthening the economy, or bringing down the price of a six-pack (at least not directly), but for the first time in the history of American campaigning that I'm aware of, he referred to the issue of "land use."

September 6 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

Hybrid Nation?

My Toyota Prius just turned 100,000. That’s quite a milestone for a car and it may be a harbinger of things to come. Many planners are betting so-called “peak oil” will undermine our car culture because we won’t have the fuel to feed them. The history of my Prius suggests otherwise.

September 5 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

Waiting for the urban clothesline

This Labor Day weekend, Southern California is facing an extreme heat wave, with temperatures soaring well above 100 degrees. Air conditioners have to work overtime to keep indoor temperatures near 80, and California power resources are operating at near capacity. As condominiums bake in the sun (as they do most of the year around here), there is not a solar panel in sight. While we are still waiting for renewable energy, a few simple measures could lead to big residential power savings. Enter the laundry line, one of the oldest and most practical ways to use solar energy. Electric clothes dryers not only require vast amounts of fossil fuel-derived power, they also pour heat into living spaces and strain cooling systems.

September 4 - Diana DeRubertis

BLOG POST

Art, Access, and History on Seattle's Waterfront

Last month, the Mayors’ Institute on City Design hosted a regional session in partnership with the <a href="http://www.caup.washington.edu/">University of Washington</a>, and we were fortunate that the session’s organizers were able to secure meeting space in the entry pavilion to the Seattle Art Museum’s <a href="http://www.seattleartmuseum.org/visit/OSP/default.asp">Olympic Sculpture Park</a>.

August 30 - Jess Zimbabwe

BLOG POST

Design is Social Activism

“I have always thought that design can be a form of social activism,” says Don Meeker, environmental graphic designer and co-creator of “Clearview” typeface. This small but radical quotation was buried in an article from the 8.12.07 NY Times Sunday magazine (<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/magazine/12fonts-t.html" target="_blank">http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/magazine/12fonts-t.html</a>) on the redesign of highway sign typeface. Meeker, James Montalbano, and a team of collaborators understood that it was the design of highway signage that was contributing to highway fatalities. They applied an understanding of human psychology and function to the solution of a “civic issue.” Radical idea. It’s called Universal Design. Or social activism.

August 23 - Barbara Knecht

BLOG POST

'Civic Theater' at Its Best

Like many others, I tuned into the CNN/YouTube debate a few weeks ago. As a firm believer in citizen involvement, to the point of recently writing a book* full of case studies of public process in action, I found CNN’s broadcast of real people with real questions in real time to be utterly fascinating. The public taking hold of technology, influencing candidates with their frank questions, and getting answers that sounded less scripted and on message—it was a sight to see. YouTubers’ questions of the nine Democratic candidates were succinct and to the point. And no, I did not hear the other 3,000 submitted questions, but the ones that aired on live TV were brilliant. Anderson Cooper even quipped that it might be the end of newscasters.

August 20 - Barbara Faga

BLOG POST

Graduate School 2008: Nuts and Bolts of Applying

With the summer coming to a close new students are making their way to graduate planning programs. For those thinking about applying for 2008 it is time to start preparing. The deadlines can be as early as December, now only a few months away. These tips, based on my experiences on several admissions committees, can help you make sense of the application process. What Admissions Committees Look For Planning schools consider up to six different elements in admissions to masters programs: letters of intent, experience in activities related to planning (paid and volunteer work, internships, and activism), letters of reference, previous grades, GREs, and work samples.

August 18 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

Should Hong Kong and Shenzhen Merge? Tectonic Movements Towards a Regional Approach in the Pearl River Delta

The <a href="http://www.bauhinia.org">Bauhinia Foundation Research Centre</a>, a think tank close to Hong Kong governor Donald Tsang, has just released a <a href="http://www.bauhinia.org/publications/BFRC-HKSZ-ES-ENG.pdf">report</a> arguing that it might make sense for Hong Kong and Shenzhen to merge into a single metropolitan entity. According to The Economist Cities Guide email update (one of the magazine's best services for subscribers and a most for global urban trendwatches):

August 14 - Anthony Townsend

FEATURE

Beyond Moses and Jacobs

Neither the block-level gentrification inspired by the patron saint of city planning nor the wide-scale mega-project redevelopment advocated by New York City's infamous planning czar are useful models for the realities of 21st century cities.

August 13 - Neil Smith

BLOG POST

City Building the American Way

After the dramatic collapse of the Minneapolis freeway bridge last week, the collective hand-wringing began. The bridge was known to be faulty, but had not been replaced. Our entire public transit system is underfunded, we were told.In addition to transportation infrastructure, those concerned with urban issues have a litany of complaints about American cities. Our transit systems are not adequately linked to zoning laws. Our high <a href="http://www.planning.org/APAStore/Search/Default.aspx?p=1814" target="_blank">parking </a>requirements doom alternative modes of transit and drive up development costs. Our policies encourage uncontrolled sprawl, which seemingly nobody likes. Planners' recommendations are too often overruled by ill-informed and politicized zoning boards. Our buildings aren't energy efficient. City mayors and councils <a href="http://rethinkcollegepark.net/blog/2007/429/" target="_blank">play politics</a> with projects painstakingly approved through highly democratic review processes. And nobody's happy when local activists hold undue power over individual projects. The solutions we are given are almost as varied as the problems. More centralized planning is often called for, or perhaps more regional planning. However, this seems highly difficult and unlikely in <a href="http://blog.commonmonkeyflower.net/node/233" target="_blank">most places</a> where land use is regulated by many small municipalities. Some suggest the solution is more public input on infrastructure and private projects to enhance their quality, while others think we need less input to speed them along and reduce the costs incurred by delays. Some are convinced elaborate flexible or form-based zoning holds the key to better cities, although implementation seems frustratingly difficult. Some cynics conclude that perhaps it is American cultural biases that produce our flawed cities: maybe Americans just like it this way, living with decaying infrastructure, long commutes, but low taxes. The motley list of solutions almost never includes the one thing that actually has overcome the myriad of obstacles to good city building before: a broad-based and robust conversation to create solutions, money, and political support.

August 10 - Robert Goodspeed

BLOG POST

Lightning-Quick Governmental Reactions And The Broken Bridge Bandwagon

The August 1 collapse of the Interstate 35W bridge over the Mississippi River in Minneapolis has briefly reminded municipalities across the continent that they, too, have crumbling infrastructure. Local officials have reacted to this tragic current event by reassuring their respective constituencies that they will do whatever they can to make sure their bridges are safe. But if that bridge in Minneapolis hadn't collapsed, would America's formerly-unconsidered bridges be getting all of this attention?

August 9 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

Facebook takes over Palo Alto - Valleywag

Valleywag, the uber-obnoxious Bay Area gossip blog has a great piece on the impact a rapidly-expanding Facebook.com has on downtown Palo Alto (The Institute is right across the street!)

August 7 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

Green Lawns, Black Neighborhoods: African American Middle-Class Suburbs and Planning

I first visited the African American suburb of Country Club Hills, south of Chicago, as an interviewer for a research project. It seemed as though only race had been reversed: The Maryland suburbs I had grown up in were 80 percent white, these were 80 Black, but otherwise they were so utterly familiar, right down to the floor plan of the split-level ranches, that I knew the layout of every home before I went in. In research I’ve begun on other Black, middle-class suburbs, however, it turns out that more than color has been reversed. In fact, race reverses many of the things planners have come to see as inevitable.

August 7 - Greg Smithsimon