Planetizen’s Top Posts of 2023

Each year, Planetizen takes stock of the stories that struck a chord with readers and garnered the most views on our site. This year, readers gravitated toward stories about shifting urban landscapes and new visions for cities. While a degree of virality—exponential growth of traffic due to the cascading effects of sharing on social media and elsewhere on the internet—is a common component among most of these popular posts, their popularity points to the issues that are at the top of planners’ minds.

Exclusive Articles

1. The 100 Most Influential Urbanists, Past and Present (July 2023) 
2. The Most Influential Contemporary Urbanists (August 2023)
3. How Can Urban Planning Address the ‘Loneliness Epidemic’? (May 2023)
4. Shaping a 15-Minute City Vision for Detroit and Cleveland Using Data-Assisted Modeling (February 2023)
5. The Responsibility of the Building to the Street (February 2023) 
6. The Tragedy of Parking (April 2023)
7. Planetizen’s Top Planning Books of 2023 (November 2023) 
8. Goat Blocks: A Blueprint for Urban Placemaking and Walkability (October 2023) 
9. Essay: Will America Ever Change its Urban Patterns? (April 2023) 
10. Opinion: The Arrogance of Social Media Urbanists (October 2023)

Blog Posts

1. Red Cities, Blue Cities, and Crime (March 2023)
2. The Missing 13th Floor: How Ancient Fears Influence Modern Architecture (January 2023) 
3. The Mansfield Bar: How a Celebrity Death Changed Auto Safety (June 2023) 
4. Cool Walkability Planning (June 2023) 
5. New York Governor Advances Housing Plan Amid Stiff Suburban Opposition (March 2023) 
6. Transportation Agencies: Improve Your Models or Hire More Lawyers (April 2023) 
7. How Transit Villages Are Reshaping New Jersey’s Urban Landscape (August 2023) 
8. Jersey City and Newark: A Tale of Renaissance and Stagnation (October 2023) 
9. Completing Sidewalk Networks: Benefits and Costs (August 2023) 
10. Jane Jacobs and Zoning (February 2023) 

News Posts

1. New York-to-New Jersey Tunnel to Break Ground (August 2023) 
2. A Look at Amtrak’s Ambitious Expansion Plan (July 2023) 
3. Bill Legalizing ADUs Passes Texas Senate (May 2023) 
4. Airbnb Market in ‘Collapse,’ Analyst Says (July 2023) 
5. The Slow Death of Ride Sharing (June 2023) 
6. Arizona ‘Car-Free’ Neighborhood Nears Opening (June 2023)   
7. Oklahoma Launches 'Pay-per-Mile' Pilot (May 2023) 
8. Louisiana Town Sets Permanent Curfew for Walking and Biking (July 2023) 
9. Las Vegas-to-L.A. High-Speed Rail Project Passes Another Hurdle (July 2023) 
10. A $400 Billion City in the U.S. Desert (January 2023) 

Planopedia

Planetizen has published nearly 100 definitions since the beginning of 2020, and the definition pages have quickly established themselves as popular resources. Where the previous posts identified the intensity of more topical interests, the posts below reflect a more lasting and ongoing interest in more foundational information about planning. These are the questions people are asking to inform their understanding of the world of planning.

1. What Is Car-Centric Planning? - 'Car-centric planning' refers to urban planning that privileges the private automobile as a primary transportation mode, often to the exclusion of people who walk, bike, or use public transit. 
2. What Is Regional Planning? - Regional planning addresses planning issues that cross local jurisdictional boundaries, like transportation or watershed protection. 
3. What Is Levittown? - Known as the archetypal post-war American suburb, Levittown was the first mass-produced housing development and set a standard for planned subdivisions for decades to come.
4. What Is By-Right Development? - A by-right approval (also known as an as-of-right approval) is granted when a development proposal strictly conforms to zoning and building codes and, thus, qualifies for construction without requiring discretionary approval.
5. What Is a Central Business District (CBD)? - A central business district (CBD) is a geographic area sometimes referred to as downtown, but with key distinctions critical to an understanding of city and regional planning.
6. What Is Infill Development? - Billed as an alternative to urban sprawl, infill development encourages the development of underused or vacant land in existing urban areas to increase density and place new development near existing resources and infrastructure.
7. What Is Euclidean Zoning? - Euclidean zoning is responsible for the sprawling, suburban character of much of the built environment in the United States.
8. What Is a Form-Based Code? - Form-based codes are a variety of development regulation that departs significantly from the land use control approach of most zoning codes in the United States.
9. What Is Walkability? - Walkability refers to the ability to safely walk to services and amenities within a reasonable distance, usually defined as a walk of 30 minutes or less.
10. What Are Zoning Codes? - Local governments use zoning codes to define what can and cannot be built. While comprehensive plans and other kinds of plans lay out a vision for the future, zoning codes offer the legal tools to implement that vision.