UCLA urban planning professor Randall Crane offers his observations on the four options that planning schools have for helping applicants decide to which schools they should apply and attend.
"My first point is that applicants do certainly rank programs when they decide where to apply and then where to attend. Didn't you? So the question is less whether ranking is advisable than how applicants do it, whether that can be improved, and then whether our individual schools, our organization (ACSP), or other organizations (e.g., Planetizen) can contribute to or interfere with those efforts."
"...I trust prospective students to understand there is no definitive, unidimensional way to rank either (a) a Masters program's comparative strengths and weaknesses or, specifically, (b) what that program has to offer as value-added to produce better practitioners."
FULL STORY: Ranking Urban Planning Programs

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.

San Francisco Suspends Traffic Calming Amidst Record Deaths
Citing “a challenging fiscal landscape,” the city will cease the program on the heels of 42 traffic deaths, including 24 pedestrians.

Adaptive Reuse Will Create Housing in a Suburban Texas Strip Mall
A developer is reimagining a strip mall property as a mixed-use complex with housing and retail.

Study: Anti-Homelessness Laws Don’t Work
Research shows that punitive measures that criminalized unhoused people don’t help reduce homelessness.

In U.S., Urban Gondolas Face Uphill Battle
Cities in Latin America and Europe have embraced aerial transitways — AKA gondolas — as sustainable, convenient urban transport, especially in tricky geographies. American cities have yet to catch up.
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.
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
JM Goldson LLC
Custer County Colorado
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
Jefferson Parish Government
Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Claremont