The suburbanization of business headquarters may be coming to an end.
More businesses are ditching their suburban office park headquarters and moving back into the city, according to this piece from Harvard Business Review.
"The change is about more than evolving tastes; it's at least partly a reaction to real problems created by suburbs. Their damage to quality of life is well chronicled. For instance, studies in 2003 by the American Journal of Public Health and the American Journal of Health Promotion linked sprawl to rising obesity rates. (By contrast, new research in Preventive Medicine demonstrates, people living in more urban communities reap health benefits because they tend to walk more.) Car culture hurts mental health as well. Research by behavioral economist Daniel Kahneman and his team shows that out of a number of daily activities, commuting has the most negative effect on people's moods. And economists Bruno S. Frey and Alois Stutzer have found that commuters who live an hour away from work would need to earn 40% more money than they currently do to be as satisfied with their lives as noncommuters."
Read the full story: Back to the City
Companies Ditch Suburban Office Parks
Suburban areas were once strongholds of corporate campuses and office parks. But there's a shift underway that's drawing companies back to cities.
If You Lived In This Inner-Ring Suburb, You'd Be Home By Now
This week, a few stories circulated around our office that generated some discussion. One was a piece in The New Yorker by Nick Paumgarten on commuting in America entitled "There and Back Again". The tease at the beginning sums up the entire piece: "People may endure miserable commutes out of an inability to weigh their general well-being against quantifiable material gains."In this story, the writer accompanies commuters in Manhattan and Atlanta while attempting to understand the life of an "extreme commuter."
Snowstorm That Stranded Thousands Prompts Questions About Auto-Centric Development
After thousands of motorists spent over a day on a snowbound Virginia highway, experts are warning that auto-centric sprawl will worsen the impacts of extreme weather events.
Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.
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.
Desperate measures: Advocates weigh draining Lake Powell to fill Colorado River
Draining the reservoir could reduce evaporation losses by a couple hundred thousand acre-feet.
Mamdani’s pied-à-terre tax survives legal challenge
A panel of judges found that the plaintiffs failed to demonstrate injury as a result of New York City's implementation of the tax.
Eastern Nebraska is running out of electricity
Data centers and electrification are straining eastern Nebraska’s grid, throttling economic development.
Seattle passes record-breaking transit services expansion
Proposition 1 will double the city’s transit tax to add 95,000 more bus trips and preserve 180,000 bus trips annually.
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
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority