Planning students from New York-area universities are being integrated into the city's community boards through an innovative new fellowship program.
The community boards are tasked with making a variety of local-level planning decisions, but none have planners on staff. The fellowship program was started to fill that void by Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer three years ago. It was limited to Manhattan, but now the program is expanding.
"Upon taking office in 2006, Stringer launched his Planning Fellowship Program to help place planning students from the surrounding universities-Pratt, Columbia, Hunter, City College, Rutgers, NYU, and the New School-with the 12 community boards in Manhattan. While their work was part time, they helped out with technical challenges, research, and special projects that even the boards' land-use experts struggled with or lacked the time to execute, as highlighted in a story we wrote the following year.
This year, two Brooklyn boards-Fort Greene and Park Slope-have picked up fellows, and Stringer, with the backing of the Bloomberg administration, which controls his and the boards' budgets, said today at a press conference that he hopes to have fellows in every board in all five boroughs by the start of the next academic year."
FULL STORY: All Planning Is Local

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

San Francisco's School District Spent $105M To Build Affordable Housing for Teachers — And That's Just the Beginning
SFUSD joins a growing list of school districts using their land holdings to address housing affordability challenges faced by their own employees.

The Tiny, Adorable $7,000 Car Turning Japan Onto EVs
The single seat Mibot charges from a regular plug as quickly as an iPad, and is about half the price of an average EV.

Trump Approves Futuristic Automated Texas-Mexico Cargo Corridor
The project could remove tens of thousands of commercial trucks from roadways.

Austin's First Single Stair Apartment Building is Officially Underway
Eliminating the requirement for two staircases in multi-story residential buildings lets developers use smaller lots and more flexible designs to create denser housing.

Atlanta Bus System Redesign Will Nearly Triple Access
MARTA's Next Gen Bus Network will retool over 100 bus routes, expand frequent service.
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.
Smith Gee Studio
City of Charlotte
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
Municipality of Princeton (NJ)