The demise of a beloved outdoors gear chain in Southern California suggests that no store is safe in America's high-priced cities.
"Any regular customer of A16’s flagship West Los Angeles store will attest to the primordial memories it invoked... A16 supplied Boy Scouts and dirtbags and weekend warriors for 59 years. I was in the latter category, at best, but I still loved it for what it evoked: the full embrace of California’s wilderness."
"We all know the reasons for the decline of retail, just like we all know the reasons behind climate change. The rise of online online shopping and big box retail, somewhat bafflingly, with rising commercial rents in many cities."
"A bookstore embodies the wisdom of books. An outdoors store embodies the sublimity of the outdoors. Customers feel something effable and priceless when they physically enter places that are appealing, enriching, and inexplicably personal--not unlike the way worshippers feel when they enter a church."
Read the full story: Bidding Unhappy Trails to the Old Retail Landscape
Is There Space for Planning in Trump's News Cycle?
An analysis of Planetizen traffic in the first six months of the Trump Administration reveals an audience still focused, despite so many distractions, on the future of communities.
Recent Retail Closures in U.S. Cities Follow Trends Established Before the Pandemic
While some cling to debatable claims about higher crime rates as the cause for recent high-profile store closures in U.S. downtowns, the real reasons are more realistically extensions of the causes of the “retail apocalypse” from the before times.
The State of Commercial Corridors (And How to Protect Them During the Pandemic)
The pandemic is accelerating recent trends in commercial real estate with potentially catastrophic consequences for the commercial corridors that play such a fundamental role in the urban fabric.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
California plans to bury El Niño’s downpour
If the state plays its cards right, it may be able to store a billion acre-feet of El Niño’s water in aquifers.
Chicago breaks ground on $3 billion megadevelopment
The new neighborhood, titled Foundry Park, will one day host 3,700 residences.
California High-Speed Rail Authority CEO resigns after $600,000 scandal
Under Ian Choudri, the authority used taxpayer dollars to fund first class flights and trips to nightclubs.
Want to study the Missouri River? Soon, you may need unanimous approval from 10 states
Legislation would require 10 governors’ permission to study or build projects moving water outside the basin.
Desperate measures: Advocates weigh draining Lake Powell to fill Colorado River
Draining the reservoir could reduce evaporation losses by a couple hundred thousand acre-feet.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority