Let's take a moment for New Orleans, folks. Better coverage elsewhere -- check out Boing Boing for links in the blogosphere. So here, you just get an observation: nature, abetted by dumb human decisionmaking, has killed that city. In a lot of ways, New Orleans is -- maybe was -- a great place. Tremendous food and music. Like Las Vegas, it was a place where Americans kept their decadence, like a precious thing in a box. In Europe, every city and town blows up into a party Carnival; in the US, we keep our Carnivals going non-stop, 24/7, but they're geographically confined.
Let's take a moment for New Orleans, folks. Better coverage elsewhere -- check out Boing Boing for links in the blogosphere. So here, you just get an observation: nature, abetted by dumb human decisionmaking, has killed that city.
In a lot of ways, New Orleans is -- maybe was -- a great place. Tremendous food and music. Like Las Vegas, it was a place where Americans kept their decadence, like a precious thing in a box. In Europe, every city and town blows up into a party Carnival; in the US, we keep our Carnivals going non-stop, 24/7, but they're geographically confined.
But New Orleans also had hideous poverty, one of the highest murder counts in the country, vast slums...and constant construction on its waterways that rendered it vulnerable to disasters like Katrina.
So now what do we have? Looting, riots at Wal-Marts attempting to hand out emergency supplies, the poor dying because they have no private means of evacuating, and a once-great city turned into a seven-foot-deep stew of cholera, corpses, and fuel. Whether or not global warming exacerbates storms, the swamp has taken back the city. It's Mad Max over there.
Some of you readers are planners. I'm not. But I'm asking: remember New Orleans. City planning is not just a matter of building cute little urban entertainment destination malls close to parks, on light rail lines. Those things are important, but better planning -- a better city -- could have elevated New Orleans' poor, provided easier ways out of town, made the city safer in the face of a hurricane. A better city would not have died.
When the science fiction writer William Gibson said that the future is already here, but unevenly distributed, he wasn't only talking about cell phones and PET scans. He was talking about this, too. The apocalypse doesn't come all at once, folks. It happens bit by bit, until pretty soon CNN's talking about abandoning a city you love.
Remember New Orleans.

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
