This excerpted chapter is from a "fix-it manual" for citizen planners working on improving their towns or neighborhoods.
Real Towns is a handbook for real people - people who live in small towns, new suburbs or big cities; in downtown neighborhoods, historic districts or high-rise condos. This fix-it manual can help citizens working on real neighborhoods - places filled with character, families, and history, with people who want to make their communites work better. It gives local government officials, developers and citizen activists the tools needed to apply time-tested principles to revitalize their neighborhoods."This is a fix-it manual for working on real towns or neighborhoods - places filled with character, with families, with history, filled with people who want to make them better. Making towns work isn't exactly rocket science. It is often more complicated -- but some of the basic truths are very simple. Just as owner-builders can learn how to work on their houses, citizens can learn how to work on their communities. The obvious place to start is by looking at the parts that aren't working well, figuring out how they are interrelated, and diagnosing how to fix them together." The Citizen Planner has become an integral chapter in the recently-released book, Real Towns: Making Your Neighborhood Work (Local Government Commission and Citizen Planner Institute, 2000). [Thanks to "Real Towns" author Harrison Bright Rue for contributing the book summary.]
Thanks to The Practice of New Urbanism
Read the full story: The Citizen Planner
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
Chicago breaks ground on $3 billion megadevelopment
The new neighborhood, titled Foundry Park, will one day host 3,700 residences.
This MA town is drowning in its own sewage — and residents like it that way
Susan Murcott, a waste water expert, said if Carlisle didn't address their leaking sewage, the problem could turn “deadly.”
California plans to bury El Niño’s downpour
If the state plays its cards right, it may be able to store a billion acre-feet of El Niño’s water in aquifers.
With no reauthorization bill in sight, Texas slashes $6.6 billion from transportation budget
An official said the program may receive additional funding when a federal reauthorization bill passes.
Chicago’s new transit authority has ‘unprecedented’ land development power
The Northern Illinois Transit Authority is allowed to buy and develop land for reasons unrelated to transit, a power that is fairly unique among transit authorities.
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
City of Rosemead
Rutgers University, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy
One Hundred Miles
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello