Land Use

Lockdown Benefits Urban Farmers In Paris
Pandemic induced lockdown kept Parisians within 1 km of their homes during lockdown, benefiting urban farmers and advocates for a diversified local food supply.

Agrihoods: Futureproofing the Cities of America
The development and planning team behind Middlebrook Farm in Iowa explains how the master-planned community balances productive farmland with new community development.

Well Done, Kiwis! New Zealand Delivers Big Planning Policy Reforms
New Zealand’s new national urban development policy prohibits parking minimums and increases allowable building heights near transit stations. This is a watershed moment for the country’s cities and towns.

Trump Finally Follows Through on Threat to Gut Obama-Era Fair Housing Rule
It's not clear if President Trump is aware that his administration has been working to rescind the Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule since 2018, but he's recently doubled down on messaging that pit suburbs against the Fair Housing Act.

A Tale of Two Real Estate Markets
Hotels, retail, and office properties, along with renters, have been ravaged by the economic downturn of the pandemic. Meanwhile home sales are booming as people with money in the bank take advantage of low interest rates to upgrade.

New Zealand Eliminates Parking Minimums and Height Limits to Increase Urban Infill
Once again, New Zealand shows the way! The national government's new urban development policy will eliminate off-street parking requirements and remove low height-limits near transit stations to encourage more efficient infill development.

NYC Rezoning Plan Reinstated Despite Lack of Racial Impact Analysis
The New York Appellate Division's First Department made short work of a ruling that reinstated the Inwood NYC Action Plan, which a lower court dismissed in December 2019.

The Great Debate: Will the Pandemic Alter the Course of Urbanism?
The geography for the coronavirus has changed, but most of the debate about the future of cities continues along many of the same lines as in the early months of the pandemic.

S.F. Rezoning Plan Paused for Equity Analysis
A plan to rezone parcels around the busy intersection of Market Street and Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco, called the Hub, will undergo an analysis of the potential impacts of the plan on marginalized communities.

Roswell, Georgia Limits Multi-Family Development Despite Affordability Concerns
The Roswell City Council discussed how limiting multi-family developments could increase housing costs, and then voted to limit multi-family development anyway.

Community Planning Groups Scrutinized for Demographic Disparities in San Diego
Older, white homeowners take up far more than an equal share of the seats at the planning table in San Diego.

A Defense of 'Out of Scale' Buildings
Beauty is often known to break the rules.

Plan Bay Area 2050 Draft Released
A regional plan for the nine-county San Francisco Bay Area is available for public comment.

Growing Anti-Development Sentiment Kills Mixed-Use Proposal in East Bay City
The city of Dublin, located adjacent to the I-580/I-680 intersection in the East Bay Area, pulled the plug on a proposed mixed-use development that would have added apartments, senior houses, restaurants, and a theater to the quickly growing city.

How Houston Achieved Lot Size Reform
Nolan Gray of George Mason University and Adam A. Millsap of the Charles Koch Institute write about a recent article they authored in the Journal of Planning Education and Research.

ADU Business Booming in California
The number of Californians adding Accessory Dwelling Units to residential properties has quickly grown during the pandemic, according to industry sources.

The Villages and the Dangers of Holding Too Tightly to the Past
Some parts of The Villages, Florida, the nation's largest retirement community and one of its most popular master planned communities, bear a striking resemblance to the neotraditional development favored by famous early examples of New Urbanism.

Pro-Development Coalition Forms in Connecticut
DesegregateCT is a growing coalition of groups coalescing behind ideas like Missing Middle Housing and zoning reform as a means to improved housing affordability.

The Greener Side of Hong Kong: Five Parks to Visit
Most people only know Hong Kong as an urban jungle and one of the densest cities in the world. However, there are actually green places where its residents can go for exercise and relaxation.

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.
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