Exclusives
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Programmed to Need Urban Nature
Human beings are both born and programmed to need open spaces. As our existence becomes increasingly urban, cities and towns must provide the open spaces our natures require.
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Location Optimization Tools: Toward More Comprehensive and Multi-Modal Indicators
New tools are becoming available to help people evaluate the quality of walking, cycling, public transit and automobile accessibility when making home location decisions. This information can help create more efficient and sustainable communities.
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How the Daily Commute Hurts Civic Engagement
A contributing factor to widespread political disengagement? It's not what you might expect. Here's how the daily commute diminishes citizens' interest and ambition to get involved in their communities.
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The Pluck of Dawn Zimmer
Planners can learn a lot about the havoc money unleashes on otherwise benign development plans from the moral fortitude displayed by Hoboken Mayor Dawn Zimmer.
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See-Saws, Circles, and Narrative Fallacies
A minor word of caution on statistical inference and the stories it can tell
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The Roots of Snowmageddon
Last week, many Atlantans were stuck in traffic overnight because of fewer than three inches of snow. What went wrong?
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How Should We Measure Traffic Congestion?
Transportation system performance is often evaluated using congestion intensity indicators, which favor automobile-dependency and sprawl. Strategic planning requires more comprehensive and multi-modal indicators which measure congestion costs.
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Jittery Places, Reducing the Right to Just Be
You’re being monitored. Everything you are is tracked and stored in a data centre. How do you feel about these digital and physical forms of regulation? Do they make you jittery? Do you feel more secure? Are you a wiser consumer?
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End the Transit Commuter Benefit, And Replace It With This
If we really want more people to use transit, and we think it's a worthwhile goal to subsidize people's commutes, why go through all the trouble of tax deductions and employer control? Why not just subsidize transit passes directly?
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Lessons from Don Draper (for Planners)
Aside from inspiring a classy wardrobe, what can urban planners learn from characters like Don Draper and Peggy Olson? What cues should urban planners and policy makers take from the field of advertising to help pitch planning ideas?
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Learning from Chicago's Schools
As the north side of Chicago has gentrified, many Chicago schools' test scores have improved- evidence that if a city neighborhood attracts enough affluent families, its schools will become more attractive as well.
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StreetSeen: A New Tool for Understanding the Built Environment
Want an easy to use public engagement tool that helps you to understand the visual preferences of the public? StreetSeen (http://streetseen.osu.edu), a free online tool allows planners and others to simply construct and deploy visual surveys.
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More Bicycle Route Debate, Or Valuing Multi-Modalism
The best solution to many transportation problems is to improve transport system diversity so travelers can choose the best option for each trip. This requires more comprehensive and multi-modal planning. Not everybody is ready.
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Book Review: Visions of Seaside
A new anthology tells the story of Seaside like we've never heard it before–on its own terms.
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Urban Road-Building Linked to Poor Statewide Economic Performance
Besides wasting billions of taxpayer dollars, road-building may actually be holding back economic growth overall.
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The Shared Dynamics of Obamacare and Public Transit
Seems like an absurd pairing, right? Perhaps so but please hear me out.
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What are Transportation Planners Talking About?
Last week, the Transportation Research Board held its annual conference with < 10,000 people in attendance. We analyzed the tweets to generate a list of the hottest topics, links to transportation resources, and most influential people.
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Affordable Housing Is Two Separate Issues
The policies that create affordable housing for the middle class might not be those necessary to prevent homelessness for the destitute.
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How to Create a Mobile Enabled Plan
People are increasingly accessing information via mobile devices, so why not provide mobile enabled plans? Learn how to create a mobile ready plan that is readable in Kindle or iBooks at low to no-cost.
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Greetings from TRB!
Each January Washington DC hosts a huge gathering of the transportation planning tribe. What do we do? Read about it here.
City of Moorpark
City of Tustin
Tyler Technologies
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Chaddick Institute at DePaul 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.
