Cities around the continent are taking steps to reimagine transportation, housing, and energy use with intriguing projects that could provide useful lessons for American cities.

In a guest essay in Volts, Michael Eliason highlights five "intriguing and powerful" European urbanism trends that hold useful lessons for the Biden administration. These include:
- Brownfield redevelopment: Cities all over Europe are turning brownfields into dense, livable, eco-friendly neighborhoods that take advantage of existing land and discourage sprawl. "Citizen participation is also a major component of these projects. Unlike in the US, this participation isn’t a wasteful exercise whereby local homeowners get to block new homes and preserve the status quo. Rather, these processes allow residents to have a say in what their new district can look like, where things should be located, and what kinds of open space or car-free areas it will have."
- Diversity in housing options: Unlike the largely single-family zoning found in many U.S. cities, "cities like Berlin, Vienna, and Freiburg have proactive land policies for non-market housing like social housing, cooperatives, and baugruppen. They award sites to projects incorporating sustainability, affordability, or other innovations." Meanwhile, social housing plays a major role in Europe; a quarter of Dutch housing is social housing, and Paris is aiming for 30% social housing by 2030.
- Rapid transformation: City leaders are working to expedite projects and take "rapid, productive steps" to implement plans that seek to transform cities, improve livability, and reduce environmental impacts. In a reversal of U.S. NIMBYism, some cities are embracing change as a positive constant. "Rotterdam is never finished," goes a slogan in the Dutch city. "Quality of life is always improving."
- Productive cities: The concept promotes a sort of radical mixed-use that brings production into the heart of the city. Production, Eliason writes, "can include urban agriculture, energy production, food production/processes, recycling centers, or any of the small-scale production processes that constitute industry 4.0." As Eliason asserts, "[p]roductive cities mark a return to the way cities developed centuries ago, but with significantly less pollution and safety hazard."
- Circular economy: The European parliament's Circular Economy Action Plan lays out concrete steps "to reduce waste, empower consumers, change food systems, and make sustainable products the norm."
FULL STORY: The 5 coolest trends in urbanism ... in Europe

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

In Urban Planning, AI Prompting Could be the New Design Thinking
Creativity has long been key to great urban design. What if we see AI as our new creative partner?

Cal Fire Chatbot Fails to Answer Basic Questions
An AI chatbot designed to provide information about wildfires can’t answer questions about evacuation orders, among other problems.

What Happens if Trump Kills Section 8?
The Trump admin aims to slash federal rental aid by nearly half and shift distribution to states. Experts warn this could spike homelessness and destabilize communities nationwide.

Sean Duffy Targets Rainbow Crosswalks in Road Safety Efforts
Despite evidence that colorful crosswalks actually improve intersection safety — and the lack of almost any crosswalks at all on the nation’s most dangerous arterial roads — U.S. Transportation Secretary Duffy is calling on states to remove them.
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.
Appalachian Highlands Housing Partners
Gallatin County Department of Planning & Community Development
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
Mpact (founded as Rail~Volution)
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
City of Portland
City of Laramie