Exclusives

BLOG POST

Truly Great Teachers: Remembering Peter Marris

As an educator who also enjoys practice, I periodically weigh up where my efforts are best spent. Is it making a difference via educating students in the classroom, and through my research and writing, as they use this knowledge in their work in the distant future? Or can I make a difference more directly though practice now? It is hard to know which path is best and the path of teaching is a riskier choice. Truly exceptional teachers and scholars, however, can make an enormous impact.

July 4 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

Can Transit Link A Sprawling County?

I’ve confirmed that it is possible to take public transportation to the most suburban of suburban locations: the outlet mall.

July 3 - Diana DeRubertis

FEATURE

Straw Men In A Sprawl World

Smart growth isn't an attack on the middle class, and those who argue as such are simply misrepresenting facts to distract from the real issues that planners are trying to mitigate.

July 2 - Michael Dudley

BLOG POST

Taking The “Short View” On Shrinking Cities

I’m not basing this quick observation on any specific historical research or book, so bear with me. Cities grow and shrink; in effect they change rapidly (although sometimes it doesn’t seem rapidly enough and at other times all too rapidly). Where we operate in that continuum I think shapes much of how we see our role as professionals. Planning to address either shrinking cities or growing ones can seem, at times, like totally different professions. A colleague of mine remarked that planning for shrinking cities is definitely a niche market. With so much discussion surrounding growth and how we grow, there is much less dialog that defines the opposite. </sp

July 1 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

Why is Vancouver Such a Nice City?

Last week I was up in Vancouver participating in a "Roundtable" discussion focused on whether Vancouver's politicians should pass policies to "protect" commercial activity downtown from displacement caused by the red hot residential condo market. At this roundtable, I had the opportunity to meet Brent Toderian. He is the City of Vancouver's Director of Planning. I was very impressed with him. It now strikes me that "free market" enviro/urban economists (such as myself) and urban planners should talk more often. Permit me to generalize based on 2 data points!

June 30 - Matthew E. Kahn

BLOG POST

EcoDensity Transforming the Density Discussion – Part 1

By North-American standards, Vancouver is already a density-friendly city, relatively speaking. Although we've had our share of density related brawls and debates over the decades, by comparison to the wars fought in other cities, the "D-Word" gets a better reception here than in most places.

June 29 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

City of the Future: Houston?

Thanks to Planetizen, I found <a href="http://www.joelkotkin.com/Urban_Affairs/GHP101_Greater_Houston_5_22_07_1007am.pdf" target="_blank">“Opportunity Urbanism,”</a> a report that posits Houston as “an emerging paradigm for the 21st century.” (There's a related op-ed <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/25284" target="_blank">here</a>.) The report, regrettably, is a manifesto as empty as the title -- which Kotkin clearly hopes will become a catchphrase. So why is it important?

June 28 - James S. Russell

BLOG POST

No Freeways in Vancouver? Not Quite ...

<div>Let's begin by killing off one of the cherished half-truths about Vancouver.</div><div>Vancouver, it is said, is the only major city in North America without freeways.

June 26 - Gordon Price

BLOG POST

Simple is the Concept

“Getting” Universal Design creates an “Aha!” moment. Experiencing Universal Design creates a “Wow!” moment.

June 25 - Barbara Knecht

BLOG POST

Highway Zoning?

The Oscar-winning film The Lives of Others recalls that famous question about governments who spy on their citizens: Who will watch the watchers? (Answer: Alberto Gonzalez.) A similar, if less cloak-and-dagger question applies to planning: Who will zone the zoners? While governments use zoning to keep polluting uses away from homes, what if the biggest polluter in a city is a government use?In most cities today, the most common polluting use is exempt from zoning: highways.

June 25 - Greg Smithsimon

BLOG POST

A Tale of Two Public Processes

Over the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to attend public meetings in Europe and the American South. I find public meetings to be an entertaining challenge. Let’s face it, a public meeting is always a gamble. You’re at the mercy of whoever shows up and whatever they perceive about the project. You have to think on your feet and make quick decisions to guide the process, without looking like I’m-in-control-here-Alexander-Haig.

June 25 - Barbara Faga

BLOG POST

"I'm from the Government, and I'm here to help you"

Local officials are rightfully leery of someone who shows up at their doorstep and proclaims, "I'm from the U.S. Government ... and I'm here to help you." That probably goes double for the Environmental Protection Agency. But when a team arrives from the EPA’s Smart Growth office, rather than scrambling to bar the door, local officials greet them with open arms — because they really do provide essential assistance.

June 20 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

What Gotham Tells Us about Mass Transit

I recently got <a href="/node/24909" title="Mass Transit Unsustainability">taken to the proverbial wood shed on Planetizen Interchange</a> for arguing that mass transit is unsustainable. So, I decided that it might be useful to look at the mass transit system that seems to be the most successful in nation: New York City. New York has the density and economic activity to sustain transit—perhaps a best-case scenario in the U.S.

June 19 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

Could Your Rent Pay For More Transit?

An acquaintance of mine is trying to decide whether to move to Los Angeles or New York. Having spent most of her life in the Northeast, New York is a familiar city where she has good friends and job connections. However, she can’t help but feel the draw of the West Coast, and on a recent visit to Los Angeles, she was rather keen on settling down in Southern California, especially when she was comparing the rents in L.A. to those in New York. While rents in New York are increasingly stratospheric, L.A.’s are just exorbitantly high.

June 18 - Christian Madera

FEATURE

L.A.'s One Way Proposal Goes The Wrong Way

While there's no doubt Los Angeles has a traffic problem, it would be a mistake to put congestion relief over neighborhood revitalization.

June 18 - James Rojas

BLOG POST

The Future of Cities Community Launches at the Institute for the Future

Some readers may be familiar with the <a href="http://groups.google.com/group/telecom-cities">TELECOM-CITIES listserv</a> that I've run for the last ten years, sharing discussions about how information and communications technology is transforming cities and the process of urbanization. Once upon a time back in 1998, 1999, TELECOM-CITIES was an active community of researchers trying to figure out what fiber optics and cell phones and dot-com startups meant for the future of cities. Over the years, the list has maintained that focus, but growth of readership has been stagnant for years.

June 15 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

The Myth of The Diverse City

Solve this riddle: New York has an unequaled reputation for diversity in the US, but at the same time ranks as “hyper-segregated” in measures of Black-white racial segregation. How do we unravel this contradiction, and what does it say about what diversity really is? The Columbia Encyclopedia provides the prevailing view: “New York City is also famous for its ethnic diversity, manifesting itself in scores of communities representing virtually every nation on earth, each preserving its identity.”

June 12 - Greg Smithsimon

BLOG POST

Compelling Needs, Great Technology and Unparalleled Economic Capacity Produce Stunning Transportation Progress ...Not!

Having sat through a Transportation Task Force committee meeting recently where a representative of local government requested funds to enable the completion of a particular road project, I had to chuckle – folks had been asking for the final funds for that road for several years and, several times, various community leaders had touted the resolution of the funding problem with “full speed ahead” declarations. While not quite as embarrassing as the President Bush’s now dated declaration of “Mission Accomplished” in Iraq, it was gaining the same notoriety locally. The actual construction was less than half completed and years away from being finished. Several levels of government ha

June 12 - Steven Polzin

BLOG POST

Sound Planning

For the last couple of years I have been tracking decision support tools that bring audio into the planning process. At our <a href="http://www.communitymatters.org" title="CommunityMatters">PLACEMATTERS06</a> conference, Harris Miller Miller & Hanson Inc. (<a href="http://www.hmmh.com" title="hmmh">HMMH</a>) demonstrated their suite of acoustical environmental tools for planning, including a simple online <a href="http://www.hmmh.com/soundscape_02sbuilder.html" title="soundbuilder">soundbuilder</a> enabling visitors to create different mixes with several sound overlays.

June 11 - Ken Snyder

BLOG POST

New Orleans Today -- In Pictures And Numbers

It is now about 22 months since hurricanes Katrina and Rita devastated New Orleans and the Gulf Coast region. I was recently in New Orleans for the first time and had plenty to see. The city is still very much in a state of devastation. But there has also been a lot of progress. In this post, I'd like to share some pictures I took when I was there and some facts and figures I've come across that help illustrate the current situation in the city.

June 11 - Nate Berg