Land Use

Manhattan's Midtown East Rezoning Wins Critical Approval
A City Council committee's approval of a proposed rezoning of Midtown East represents a big win for the de Blasio Administration. The Bloomberg Administration fell short in an efforts to upzone the neighborhood in 2013.

Pittsburgh Takes Property Data Visualization to the Next Level
Not all property data maps are created equal.

Education and Nutrition Flourish Together
"A hungry world is not a just world," says one of the local residents quoted in this story about a community garden in Denver.

Critiquing Santa Monica's 'Grand Bargain' of a Downtown Plan
The city of Santa Monica increased in population by 6,500 between 1960 and 2010, while the rest of Los Angeles County grew by 60 percent over the same period. A debate over a new downtown plan that includes more housing was never going to be simple.

No More Parking Minimums in Mexico City
Mexico's capital city and the largest city in North America turned the new regulation into law earlier this month.

Congress Confirms a Controversial Number Two at the Department of the Interior
The confirmation of David Bernhardt as Deputy Secretary of the Interior has upset environmentalists and advocates for public land.

Traffic Concerns Sink Light-Rail-Adjacent Development in San Jose
The city of San Jose has a mixed record of moving forward with land use changes that complement its existing and expanding transit systems.

Op-Ed: To Lower Housing Costs, Make it Cheaper and Easier to Build Housing
The argument in the headline, put more specifically: inclusionary zoning, fees, legal challenges, and minimum apartment sizes are counter-productive. The only policy that will add housing stock, is to make it much cheaper to add housing stock.

Texas Bill Would Immunize Property Rights From Zoning Code Changes
The Texas Legislature and executive branch is continuing to wage a battle against local control, this time pursuing a land use law that would undermine zoning code changes, such as the current CodeNEXT process in Austin.

Study: 'Eyes on the Street' Have Real Value for Neighborhood Safety
The first study to make an attempt at quantifying the value of "eyes on street"—an idea most eloquently described by Jane Jacobs—offers reason to support a mix of uses, with businesses operating later in the evening.
Are Form-Based Design Standards Easier Than Form-Based Codes?
Randall Arendt looks at how communities can achieve results similar to Form-Based Codes through a simpler set of form-based design standards (FBDS).

Reservation System Possible for Zion National Park
The National Park Service is looking for solutions to overcrowding at its most popular parks. The idea of an online reservation system might get its first test in Utah.

New York Could Launch an Urban Agriculture Plan, Zoning Overhaul
New York's ability to feed itself with locally grown urban agriculture is only being partially realized. Better planning, specific to urban agriculture, would help.

Every Parking Lot, Visualized
A car spends 95 percent of the time parked, and only 5 percent of its time in use. The huge amount of space that system requires is made "intuitively and accessibly" comparable by the What the Street project.

Property Tax in Africa
The rapidly growing and urbanizing continent of Africa offers lessons in property tax.
Eminent Domain Sparks Controversy in New Jersey
Developers had plans for the largest undeveloped waterfront property north of Hoboken in the state of New Jersey. The borough of Edgewater has other plans.

How Planners Can Liberate the Next Amazon
The path to business success occasionally passes through the garage—famously demonstrated by industry titans like Amazon or Hewlett Packard. Zoning codes should encourage, not obstruct, these kinds of American success stories.

Permits for Single-Family Homes in Texas Once Again Outnumber Multifamily Permits
The longstanding trend in Texas of permitting more single-family homes than multi-family developments looks to be accelerating.

A New Video to Explain the High Cost of Free Parking
Mobility Lab, the Chilton Media Group, and Vox have produced a new video on the price of parking, and "how we have historically done it all wrong" in the United States.
Transit Village Plans Popping Up All Over San Jose
A long-awaited BART extension into San Jose, California is also bringing major development interest of the transit-oriented variety.
Pagination
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
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Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
City of Clovis
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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