Will New Orleans and the devastated region around it be rebuilt on the hollow premise of cheap oil and suburban sprawl?
"The dirty secret of the American economy for at least a decade now is that it has come to be based on the creation of suburban sprawl and the activities associated with it -- the building of cul-de-sac McMansions, highway retail pods, car sales, real estate sales, the creation of false liquidity in the form of easy mortgages and the deployment of that debt into tradable instruments. The sprawl-building industry comprises over 40 percent of what we do in this country. If you subtract it from the U.S. economy, there isn't much left besides hair cutting and open heart surgery.
...Much of the stuff just outside New Orleans, and along the Gulf Coast, was largely post-war suburban fabric -- housing subdivisions, collector boulevards with their complements of fry pits, malls, muffler shops and big box out-parcels. We'd hope that the states of Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana will not undertake to rebuild them they way they were. But the existing template reflects a pattern of property ownership that is not easily changed. The New Urbanists have a good record of retrofitting some of these things. For instance they have had some success in turning "dead" malls into mixed use town centers. But some of this stuff, in particular single-family housing developments, do not lend themselves very well to reform."
Thanks to AlterNet Headlines
FULL STORY: The Long Emergency Ahead

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.

Chicago’s Ghost Rails
Just beneath the surface of the modern city lie the remnants of its expansive early 20th-century streetcar system.

Bend, Oregon Zoning Reforms Prioritize Small-Scale Housing
The city altered its zoning code to allow multi-family housing and eliminated parking mandates citywide.

Amtrak Cutting Jobs, Funding to High-Speed Rail
The agency plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce and has confirmed it will not fund new high-speed rail projects.

LA Denies Basic Services to Unhoused Residents
The city has repeatedly failed to respond to requests for trash pickup at encampment sites, and eliminated a program that provided mobile showers and toilets.
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.
planning NEXT
Appalachian Highlands Housing Partners
Mpact (founded as Rail~Volution)
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
City of Portland
City of Laramie