Exclusives
PLANOPEDIA
What Are Comprehensive Plans?
The comprehensive plan, sometimes also referred to as a master plan or a general plan, is the foundational document of long-term planning and zoning in the United States.
BLOG POST
8 Cities Taking Steps Toward Waste Reduction and Sustainability
These eight cities are taking steps to reduce waste and achieve sustainability of their metropolitan areas. Keep reading to learn more.
BLOG POST
Not So Fast! Slower Is Often Better
To create more affordable, healthy, equitable, accessible, and resource-efficient communities, planners must reform the way we value speed relative to other community goals.
BLOG POST
Will Planners Lead the New Urban Agenda?
The United Nation’s New Urban Agenda has created a playbook for planning advocates. It opens possibilities for building inclusive, integrated urban planning in countries where planning has been top-down and limited in scope.
PLANOPEDIA
What Is Sprawl?
Sprawl is one of the most common terms used to describe built environments in the United States and the world. It can be applied to urban, suburban, and exurban settings, and it's almost never a compliment.
PLANOPEDIA
What Are Streetcar Suburbs?
Named after the mode of transportation that made their existence possible by dramatically reducing travel times, streetcar suburbs are communities located along streetcar lines farther out from city centers, on the periphery of the urban areas in the late 19th century.
FEATURE
The Changing Risks of Coastal Communities
An excerpt from "A Blueprint for Coastal Adaptation: Uniting Design, Economics, and Policy," published in May by Island Press.
FEATURE
Answers to 12 Questions About California Assembly Bill 1401
Assembly Bill 1401, one of the most closely-watched land use bills in the California State legislature this year, would remove parking requirements in "High Quality Transit Areas" statewide.
PLANOPEDIA
What Is Regional Planning?
Regional planning addresses planning issues that cross local jurisdictional boundaries, like transportation or watershed protection. In other examples, regional planning offers a holistic approach to the interconnected systems and dynamics that shape physical and cultural landscapes.
FEATURE
The Pretext Problem: The Pitfalls of Planning While Bargaining
Lots of planning is discretionary. Cities and developers negotiate what builders will do for cities in exchange for the right to build, creating an incentive for bad rules, eroding the public's faith in zoning, and enabling political corruption.
PLANOPEDIA
What Are Height Limits?
Height limits are a critical component of almost every zoning code in the United States.
BLOG POST
The Tulsa Race Massacre: A Century Later
On the hundred-year anniversary of the violence that destroyed Tulsa's "Black Wall Street," the country is finally reckoning with the legacy of one of the most destructive racially motivated riots in U.S. history.
BLOG POST
Learning About the City by Running for Office
When you are trying to get people's attention, a city feels very different.
PLANOPEDIA
What Is Multi-Family Housing?
Often discussed in contrast with single-family zoning, multi-family housing includes buildings and complexes that house more than one household in the same property.
FEATURE
The Perils of Central Planning for Parking
Donald Shoup, the author of the seminal planning book "The High Cost of Free Parking," explains how parking requirements have poisoned cities and why poor planning is to blame.
BLOG POST
Most Questions About the Long-Term Impact of the Pandemic Still Unanswered
Planetizen started gathering articles attempting to predict the post-pandemic future in March 2020. The work goes on, with many questions left still to be answered.
FEATURE
An Open Space Plan for Cultural Landscapes, Resilience, and Growth in the Coastal Southeast
The Beaufort County Greenprint Plan, completed in 2020, offers an innovative model of open space planning integrated within a larger planning framework.
PLANOPEDIA
What Are Le Corbusier's Towers in the Park?
Part of a movement that sought to modernize cities through a rational reorganization of the urban form, "Towers in the Park" is a style of housing development that emphasizes a separation of uses and access to communal green space and amenities.
BLOG POST
COVID Vaccines Are Already Changing Cities
Here are just a few ways urban environments are transforming and reinventing themselves in the wake of the coronavirus.
FEATURE
FYI about GSI: The Recipe for Green Stormwater Infrastructure Success
New research highlights some of the ways planners can increase the social benefits and public acceptance of green stormwater infrastructure.
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
KFH Group Inc.
Greater Baltimore Committee
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
