Exclusives

BLOG POST

<p>I&#39;ve been spending a lot of time over the past couple of years examining the planning literature on sustainable development. Sustainable development, as a concept, remains vague. For those interested, take a look at my recent article in the journal <a href="http://www.emeraldinsight.com/Insight/viewContentItem.do?contentType=Article&amp;contentId=1562561">Property Management</a>.</p>

April 24 - Samuel Staley

BLOG POST

<p>This week, a few stories circulated around our office that generated some discussion. One was a piece in <em>The New Yorker</em> by Nick Paumgarten on commuting in America entitled <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/04/16/070416fa_fact_paumgarten" target="_blank">&quot;There and Back Again&quot;</a>. The tease at the beginning sums up the entire piece: <em>&quot;People may endure miserable commutes out of an inability to weigh their general well-being against quantifiable material gains.&quot;</em><br /><br />In this story, the writer accompanies commuters in Manhattan and Atlanta while attempting to understand the life of an &quot;extreme commuter.&quot;

April 24 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

It&#39;s increasingly clear that the future of the car in Asia, and possibly Africa and the Middle East as well, is going to be shaped as much by what happens in the Shanghai region as Western cities were by Detroit in the 20th century.<br /><br /><blockquote>Last week General Motors (GM) unveiled a hydrogen-fuel-cell-powered version of its Chevrolet Volt concept, a family of electric cars that get a portion of their energy from being plugged into the electrical grid. The first version, announced in January, married plug-in electric drive to a gasoline or ethanol generator that can recharge the battery.<br />

April 24 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

<p>It&#39;s been a great week for city planning here on the East Coast. The American Planning Association&#39;s 99th National Conference held in Philadelphia drew more than 6,000 attendees, a fact noticed by <em>Philadelphia Inquirer </em>writer Inga Saffron in her April 13th column titled &quot;Welcome, Welcome City Planners,&quot; where she took the opportunity to draw local and national lessons from the event. The APA opened with Robert Kennedy&#39;s address on environmental planning and closed with an exploration of the legacy of Edmund Bacon (Philadelphia&#39;s director of city planning from 1949-1970), but more about that later. </p>

April 23 - Eugenie Birch

BLOG POST

Typically I have fallen into the “every day is earth day” camp. But this year, April 22nd offered a moment for reflection, although of a more professional than personal nature.<br /><br />Green is everywhere these days – from Vanity Fair to the Wall Street Journal. The decades long debate about the validity of climate change appears to be over – as the discussion seems to be quickly shifting to either: a) how do we make it less dramatic, or b) how we prepare for the inevitable.<br />

April 23 - Walker Wells

BLOG POST

<p><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Last week, my home city, Los Angeles, lost out to Chicago for the right to represent the United States in the international competition to host the 2016 Olympics.<span>  </span>Since an Olympic city selection represents the ultimate inter-urban beauty contest – dare I say, a kind of urban “International Idol” – what did this process tell us about the state of urban planning in two of America’s largest cities?</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font> </p>

April 23 - Ken Bernstein

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Arial"><p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 11pt; font-family: Arial">In 1996, my professor at the University of Colorado introduced a new concept – Transit Oriented Development (TOD).<span> </span>An emerging group of professionals that included New Urbanists were advocating the idea, but few on-the-ground examples existed.<span> </span>The debate within the planning field during those years focused on the marketability of a mixed-use product.<span> </span>TODs would have to overcome large obstacles.<span> </span>Banks were hesitant to finance an “unproven” product.<span> </span>Developers wondered if they could pass on higher construction costs to buyers, retailers questioned if there would be enough customers to fill their stores, and planners questioned if TODs would lead to changes in travel behavior.<span> </span>A decade later, many continue to ask the same questions about TOD although the difference today is that there are many successful examples to showcase and study.<span> </span>TOD is gaining popularity and widespread appeal but an important unanswered question remains – will TOD remain a niche product or will it become a mainstream development concept? </span></p>

April 23 - John Renne

BLOG POST

<p>On the Sunday that the April Nor’easter dumped the second highest rainfall ever recorded in Central Park, I waded to the New York Auto Show at the Jacob Javits Center. I wasn’t there to see the mighty floor show of preening cars inside the convention center, I went to see the Taxi ’07 exhibition outside on the wind and rain swept lower roadway. For anyone who has tried to hail a taxi in a Manhattan rainstorm, visiting the exhibition on that Sunday raised a familiar feeling: nearly a dozen yellow taxis in sight, not one of which was going to pick me up and whisk me away to dry land.<br />

April 23 - Barbara Knecht

FEATURE

In honor of Landscape Architecture Month, Planetizen profiles four students who are studying this influential discipline.

April 23 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p>Constantly updated, the internet has created an important tool for accessing up-to date information—text, still images, and video. Increasingly it also provides a window into aspects of history, including planning history, that have previously been difficult to find. Documents, indexes to archival materials, and the photographic and map collections of historical societies are accessible online. Less well known are film and video resources—resources that can be played online or downloaded. The Library of Congress, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division now boasts an outstanding collection of hundreds of videos relevant to urban issues. </p><p>Some examples illustrate the range: </p>

April 21 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

<p>This post is a few weeks after the fact but the recent APA conference only solidified my resolution to say something.  In early April <a href="http://www.california-architects.com/index.php?seite=ca_profile_architekten_detail_us&amp;system_id=14396">Teddy Cruz</a> gave a lecture here in Philly at the School of Design.  For those of you not familiar with his work, he has a unique and thoughtful perspective on the relationships between culture, planning and design.  </p>

April 20 - Scott Page

BLOG POST

<p>What is wrong with this map? </p><p><img src="/files/u2/200703280-wm-greenhouse.png" alt="" width="400" height="200" /></p>

April 19 - Abhijeet Chavan

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"><font face="Trebuchet MS" size="3">Last week I was at an interview for a potential real estate developer client who wanted transit-oriented development (TOD), but weren’t sure he wanted transit. This was a progressive developer who wanted more density, a mix-of uses and walkability. How could it be he wasn’t sure he wanted the planned transit line? Is it possible the developer had it right? </font></p>

April 18 - G.B. Arrington

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> In my hometown—and yours, too, I&#39;m sure—a small, one-story house was for sale, and then it was gone. The guy who bought it promptly tore it down and then, because the new house he had designed was too big for the site, let the hole sit there for a year, a broken tooth in the 1950s neighborhood. Of course, the house he built was still too big for the lot, but there it stands, three feet from his seething neighbors: a McMansion. </p>

April 17 - Margaret Foster

BLOG POST

I had heard stories about this the last time I visited Japan in 2004, but this month's Tokyo city briefing from <i>The Economist </i> brought this trend back to my attention. It seems retiring boomers are abandoning their suburban bedroom communities to return to the metropolitan core - presumably to be near friends, cultural attractions, and other amenities (health care? education?). I've seen rumblings of this as well in the New York metro area.

April 17 - Anthony Townsend

FEATURE

April 16 - Andrea Broaddus

BLOG POST

<p>(Prefatory musing: As the title implies, this is Part 1 in a series. I haven&#39;t yet mapped out any of the other parts, but considering the boundless errata that clutter American cities, I anticipate little trouble finding objectionables to raise my ire next time my monthly deadline approaches. I welcome my fellow Interchangers to follow suit.) </p>

April 13 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

<p>This message is brought to you by the frustrated residents of a city where strip malls prosper and the stock of affordable housing struggles to keep up with demand. </p><p><img src="/files/u5174/20070407-housingcrisis.jpg" alt="Housing Crisis In L.A." title="Housing Crisis In L.A." width="400" height="272" align="middle" /></p><p>A new strip mall being constructed at the intersection of Venice Blvd. and Western Ave. in Los Angeles inspired this public display. </p><p>Strip malls are in no short supply in L.A., and this is just one example of yet another being built in the city. Unmixed-use retail developments like this are popping up all over the place. Much less new housing is being built. And a sharply lower amount of new <em>affordable</em> housing is being built. </p>

April 13 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">The built environment is a significant contributor to community health – a fact that researchers, planners, public health practitioners, and advocates around the country are becoming increasingly aware of. We know, for example, that people who live in more “walkable” communities are in fact more likely to walk. Research has demonstrated that living near a grocery store increases consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables. Children who live near freeways may suffer from respiratory problems for the rest of their lives. These facts should be particularly important in shaping land use decisions as we face rising costs from <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: 'Times New Roman'">the obesity epidemic and other chronic diseases.<span> </span></span><span> </span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">This leaves public health advocates wondering just how best to dig into the world of planning.

April 12 - Lisa Feldstein

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">The <a href="http://www.pps.org/info/newsletter/april_first_2017/time_idea_of_the_year" target="_blank">Project for Public Spaces</a> has been sending around the e-mail circuit a mock-up of a <em>Time </em>magazine cover dated April 1 (no fooling) 2017, with a “Placemaking” headline acclaiming the triumph of smart growth principles. 2017? They’re being way too modest.</p>

April 12 - Anonymous