A recent conference hosted by the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy focused on how planners around the world are designing urban areas that respond to the impacts of climate change.
"The plans for the 2008 Beijing Olympics are notable for their extra security amid human-rights protests. But the 2012 London Olympics' park plans are notable in that they consider a climate-changed future, in which flooding may worsen and cities must minimize carbon emissions.
London's summer-games site straddles the polluted Lea River on the east end of the city, now a moribund industrial area dotted with depressed neighborhoods. The planners looked at climate models and recognized that the area, known as the Lower Lea Valley, would likely be carrying higher flood waters from intensifying rainstorms.
Jason Prior, European regional president for the planning firm EDAW, explained one consequence of this finding at a conference on Friday: the planners ran hydrological models to determine how to widen the river and design new bridges to accommodate the higher flows. "You survey the river systems, then project forward the impact of different flow conditions, and you add the amounts the climate models are giving you," Prior said after a forum on climate change and cities at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, in Cambridge, MA. "You then fine-tune the channel's cross sections, change design of bridge abutments, and design wetlands to catch the extra amounts." Site work has already begun."
FULL STORY: How to Plan for Climate Change

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

Ken Jennings Launches Transit Web Series
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California has awarded $500 million to fund 1,000 zero-emission school buses and chargers for educational agencies as part of its effort to reduce pollution, improve student health, and accelerate the transition to clean transportation.

Congress Moves to End Reconnecting Communities and Related Grants
The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee moved to rescind funding for the Neighborhood Equity and Access program, which funds highway removals, freeway caps, transit projects, pedestrian infrastructure, and more.

From Throughway to Public Space: Taking Back the American Street
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