Best Ideas Of 2006 Features Innovations In Planning

Big Urbanism: "Cities are once again planning with grandiosity" including New York's $4.2 million Atlantic Yards project, Atlanta's 300-acre Bellwood Quarry, and Denver's $110 million art museum wing and its cultural master plan.

The Humane Flophouse: Instead of housing homeless for free in crowded shelters, charge people a minimum fee for a deent place to stay. For example, in New York, "At the new Andrews, for $7 a night, the 146 residents will each get a cubicle of roughly 66 square feet with ingenious built-in storage and adjustable furniture."

Creative Shrinkage: Youngstown, Ohio, has seen a decrease in poplation to 80,000 from a peak of 170,000 residents. However, Mayor Jay Williams points out that few communities of its size boast a symphony orchestra, two respected art museums, a university, a generously laid-out downtown and an urban park larger than Central Park. "Williams's strategy calls for razing derelict buildings, eventually cutting off the sewage and electric services to fully abandoned tracts of the city and transforming vacant lots into pocket parks. The city and county are now turning abandoned lots over to neighboring landowners and excusing back taxes on the land, provided that they act as stewards of the open spaces."