Exclusives

FEATURE

When membership is not much more than a subscription and decisions are made with little group input, the APA needs to adjust the way it interacts with its members, according to self-proclaimed "APA lifer" Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP.

April 11 - Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">The recent exhibitions on Robert Moses at the Museum of the City of New York, the Queens Museum of Art, and Columbia University have revived old debates about Robert Moses, most of which have boiled down to the question: when all is said and done, was he good or bad? When I visited the exhibitions, trying to figure out my own answer, I remembered my father’s favorite saying (lifted from <em>Oedipus Rex</em>): “Would you condemn me for that which made me great?&quot;</font></p>

April 10 - Anthony Weiss

BLOG POST

<div> <p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 12pt; color: black">People often ask me if a building has to be old or look historic to create a sense of place. I always answer with a definite &quot;No!&quot; While it may be easier to find older buildings where public activity flourishes, their success is not due to age or a particular architectural style. The main factor is actually how the base of the building is treated. A building with a well-designed (and well-managed!) ground floor can be a great place regardless of the style in which it is constructed. <span class="640540921-06042007">Let&#39;s look at </span>two places which I think illustrate this point quite effectively: Country Club Plaza in Kansas City, and Rockefeller Center in New York.</span></p>

April 9 - Anonymous

FEATURE

April 9 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p>In the last few years, a set of interactive, web-based technologies has reinvented the web. Myspace, Meetup, Wikipedia, Youtube have become household words, and millions of people worldwide are surfing social networking websites, writing blogs, and collaborating online in new ways. These so-called &quot;Web 2.0&quot; technologies were the inspiration for TIME&#39;s person of the year: You. What the true impact of these technologies will be, we must conceded it is, as <a href="http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html">TIME says</a>, &quot;a massive social experiment.&quot; </p>

April 7 - Robert Goodspeed

BLOG POST

<p>The corner café on North Second Street in the Northern Liberties neighborhood of Philadelphia aspires to Euro-style café culture though it lines a little-trafficked street of row houses showing every year of their century and a half of existence, and faces a vast empty, chain-linked block where a brewery once stood. <br /><img src="/files/u10275/DSC_0054.jpg" alt="" width="320" height="212" />

April 7 - James S. Russell

BLOG POST

<!--StartFragment -->If you are a student planning travel to next week&#39;s national APA conference, you may be thinking about how to get the most out of the experience. Here are some ideas that have worked for others...

April 6 - Bruce Stiftel

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">Getting stuck in traffic is fast becoming one of those necessary evils that everyone complains about but seldom does anything about it.<span> </span>Or at least anything that seems terribly effective.<span> </span>Neither additional road building nor public transit seemed to have had a major impact on traffic congestion in places where these types of remedies have been attempted.</p>

April 5 - Lance Freeman

FEATURE

Many say Los Angeles is a city that grew without any rational planning. In reality the planning was there -- but much of the best planning never quite materialized.

April 5 - Christian Peralta

BLOG POST

<font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">My local community recently got into political spat as the city, county and state negotiated the terms of a deal to attract a major corporation to bring a facility to the community. In the interest of high-quality growth, tens of millions in dollars and various perks were offered to attract a very well-heeled corporate player. In the meantime, Floridians frustrated with the inability of government to be willing or able to keep up with growth in terms of providing the requisite infrastructure; sewer, water, transportation, etc., increased the pressure on governments to have new development pay for growth rather than having it increase the tax burden on existing residents. Let&#39;s see:

April 4 - Steven Polzin

BLOG POST

<p>Travel a few miles outside of Santa Barbara and you’ll encounter a truly rare scene – rare for coastal California in the year 2007, that is.

April 3 - Diana DeRubertis

BLOG POST

<p>Here&#39;s an item that should be more than enough to make you spew your morning latte all over the Starbucks: </p><p> In a <a href="http://www.mercerhr.com/summary.jhtml?idContent=1173105" target="_blank">survey</a>, conducted last year and released yesterday by Mercer Consulting, ranking the top 50 global cities by quality of life, not a single American city cracks the top half. Zero. </p>

April 3 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

<p>So I went to see two new New Urbanist communities this weekend - <a href="http://www.warwick-grove.com">Warwick Grove</a> in the Mid-Hudson Valley, about 50 miles from NYC, and <a href="http://www.sharbell.com/html/plainsborovillagecenter.html">Plainsboro Village Center</a> in central N.J.</p>

April 2 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

I&#39;m just back from China. Waht a week. Among other amazing experiences, we got to go for a ride in one of only 19 GM Sequel hydrogen minivans. <p>The car is remarkably similar to a regular vehicle, except for a small computer screen on the dash that provides a detailed diagnostic readout on the hydrogen fuel cell stack.</p> <p> That&#39;s my colleague Mike Liebhold of the Institute for the Future behind the wheel.</p>

April 2 - Anthony Townsend

FEATURE

Rodney Swink, past president of the American Society of Landscape Architects, celebrates the role of landscape architecture in shaping the built and natural environment.

April 2 - Rodney L. Swink

BLOG POST

<p> <img src="/files/u10403/images_0.jpg" width="114" height="50" align="left" />Well, it&#39;s not quite urban-theory-related, but my brilliant colleague Nancy Miller pointed me to the invasion of the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083658/">Blade Runner</a> aesthetic into the fashion world this year. At left, that&#39;s Darryl Hannah, playing the kooky sexbot <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000435/">Pris</a> in the movie. </p> <p> And here&#39;s the work of designer Peter Christian, from the blog <a href="http://blog.zoozoom.com/">ZooZoom</a>: </p> <p> <img src="/files/u10403/blastOff-email_0.jpg" width="500" height="352" /> </p> <p style="clear: both"> See what I&#39;m saying? </p> <p style="clear: both"> More after the jump. </p>

March 29 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Trebuchet MS">Vancouver has earned many titles and nick-names on its way to becoming an international model of urban livability. One used frequently is the title “city by design”. The language of the title is deliberately specific, particularly the choice of the word “by”. A city by design is one that has taken public or civic responsibility for its physical development. A city that has embraced the value of design, both in the broad strokes and in the details, in the achievement of its public goals, be they livability, sustainability, civic beauty or economic success.

March 29 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

<p>The American Institute of Architects recently threw its authority behind a list of America&#39;s <a href="http://www.aia150.org/afa150_default.html" target="_blank">&quot;favorite architecture,&quot;</a> ranking three centuries of indigenous design one to 150 specimins. The resulting menu, culled by survey, of buildings, bridges, monuments, and other solid things amounts to a joyous celebration and a remarkable commentary on America&#39;s embrace of beauty. It also reinforces the desperation that arises when aesthetics and nationalism mix.<br />

March 29 - Josh Stephens

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">Every five to seven years, Congress votes to reauthorize one of the largest and most significant legislative measures affecting land use policies in the U.S - the Farm Bill.<span> </span>This year, Congress will debate the omnibus legislation that defines not only America’s agricultural policy, but determines funding priorities for rural development, food and nutrition assistance, energy and environmental issues.<span> </span></p>

March 28 - Lisa Feldstein

BLOG POST

<p>Two moments in this trip bring home the pace of change here. Sunday morning, 8am, I wake up in the Zhongshan Park section of west-central Shanghai. Head out into the backlanes of the superblock behind the hotel and construction on a high-rise gated apartment building is already at full tilt. Two other construction projects intitimate in my life... a dorm across from our apartment in Manhattan, and a restaurant next to the Institute in Palo Alto, are definitely not on the same aggressive shifts.</p><p>Next moment, Wednesday evening 11:18pm at our hotel in Pudong, I glance out the window before bed and see a line of cement mixers 10-12 deep waiting to unload at the construction site across the street.</p>

March 28 - Anthony Townsend