Exclusives
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Public Policies For Optimal Urban Development
What amount of expansion, population and vehicle densities, housing mix, and transport policies should growing cities aspire to achieve? This column summarizes my recent research that explores these, and related, issues.
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Libertarian-Friendly Drought Control
Arid states can both reduce water use and avoid intrusive government by eliminating zoning regulations that mandate or encourage water-wasting lawns.
FEATURE
'Two-Ways' to Fix Our Neighborhoods
Expanding on earlier research about the impacts of one-way streets on outcomes such as public health and property values, a new study examines a citywide case study in Louisville.
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Is Travel Behavior Changing? What the New Data Says
Over the past few weeks, the Federal Highway Administration released new data reporting annual 2014 travel levels, and analysts are busy interpreting and, in some cases, spinning the results.
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How do Planners Generate Ideas?
How to generate ideas in planning is a question that many planning students ask. This can seem a mysterious and difficult process. Unfortunately, planning education has not always done a great job of helping students unpack this apparent mystery.
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Fitness Apps Are the New Planning Tool
Many smartphone users have a fitness app that they use to track their routes and progress on fitness goals. The data in these apps is a gold mine for planners, helping lead to better infrastructure investments.
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Cars Are Expensive (And Other Things the Census Taught Me)
National tables from the 2013 American Household Survey (AHS) are now public.
FEATURE
Re-Evaluating Pasadena's City of Gardens Ordinance
Practicing urbanist and USC professor Vinayak Bharne examines the legacy of a progressive zoning code over the two decades since its adoption.
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Create Your Own Mobile Planning App
Ever wonder how you could create your own mobile app. This blog post shares tools that make it possible for planners to create apps, along with an example of Chip-In, an app focused on harnessing volunteer resources in communities.
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The Trouble with Legalizing Illegal Units
The recent example of a dramatic rent increase in San Francisco may be less about loopholes in current housing laws and more about failing to consider all the implications of rushed legislation.
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Ask the Ethicist: What to Do When You Hear Internal Alarm Bells
The first in a new series by Planetizen: "Ask the Ethicist," featuring the advice of our resident expert: Carol D. Barrett, FAICP, author of "Everyday Ethics for Practicing Planners."
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Communicating Transit Benefits: We Can Do Better
Planners can do a better job communicating the benefits of high quality public transit and transit-oriented development. We can learn from marketing professionals—it's time to channel Don Draper.
FEATURE
Broken Planning: How Opponents Hijacked the Planning Process
An op-ed describes the broken state of the planning and development approval process—where opposition politics rule and the answer is usually "no."
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Death and Life in Seoul
A new article in the Journal of Planning Education and Research tests whether Jacob’s ideas ring true for predicting pedestrian vitality in Seoul.
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What Density-Phobia Gets Wrong
In her article, "What Champions of Urban Density Get Wrong," the Philadelphia Inquirer's Inga Saffron critiques attempts to increase urban population. This post responds to her work.
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Public Transit Turning Point for Vancouver
Metro Vancouver is about to vote on a historic Transportation and Transit Plan, and an associated sales tax increase to pay for it. Will the citizens of this model transit Metro vote against a transit-friendly future? Canadian urbanists weigh in.
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How Ancient and Modern Cities Compare (and Why Planners Should Care)
A new scholarly paper argues that ancient and modern cities can be usefully analyzed in a comparative perspective. But what you do with the comps depends on how much you value similarities versus differences in urban form.
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How Not to Evaluate Public Transit Risks
Randal O'Toole claims that light rail transit is more dangerous than bus or automobile travel, but he fails to account for exposure or overall safety benefits. This is a good example of bad statistical analysis.
FEATURE
Book Review: Zoned in the USA
"Zoned in the USA: The Origins and Implications of American Land-Use Regulation," by Sonja Hirt, describes the exceptional characteristics, compared to European land use regulations, that make U.S. zoning laws so conducive to sprawl.
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What Property Professors Are Writing About
A recent property professors' conference discussed a variety of issues of possible interest to planners including tightened home lending standards, municipal policies affecting the homeless, the Fair Housing Act, and inclusionary zoning.
City of Moorpark
City of Tustin
Tyler Technologies
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
