Kaid Benfield shares his placemaking pitch.
"For better or worse, we live in the age of the sound bite, when even the most intellectually complicated subjects must, to be understood, be simplified to a couple of easily communicated sentences. It’s all about hyper-short attention spans, the 140-character Tweet, and the 'elevator speech' that you can present as you and your audience descend three or four floors on your way to exit the building for lunch," writes Kaid Benfield.
Benfield's pitch for the Washington D.C. region where he lives: "In the region as a whole, we need to find a way to grow and prosper that doesn’t put so many cars on the road and that sits more harmoniously with nature. In the inner city, we need to preserve and strengthen our older neighborhoods, and to do so in a way that benefits longtime residents as well as newcomers. These things are easier said than done, but that’s why we need more people working on them and carefully putting better approaches into place." [Emphasis from the original.]
Benfield goes on to consider the inherent vagaries in any such elevator speech.
FULL STORY: Do greener, healthier cities need an 'elevator speech'?
Op-Ed: Utopian Thinking Poses Continued Dangers for Urbanists
Charles Wolfe calls attention to similarities between contemporary urbanism and yesterday's debunked utopias. The two may differ in substance, but both tend toward a certain level of dogma that isn't necessarily helpful on the ground.
Is Placemaking a 'New Environmentalism'?
Like music, environmentalism's tenets evolved from precedent, and Kaid Benfield hopes they are evolving still.
DC Planning Director Harriet Tregoning on Smartly Bridging the Anacostia River
DC Planning Director Harriet Tregoning discusses plans to create a pedestrian-oriented space out of the 11th Street Bridge as part of a larger goal of uniting DC around the Anacostia River, making it an amenity and not a barrier.
Depopulation Patterns Get Weird
A recent ranking of “declining” cities heavily features some of the most expensive cities in the country — including New York City and a half-dozen in the San Francisco Bay Area.
California Exodus: Population Drops Below 39 Million
Never mind the 40 million that demographers predicted the Golden State would reach by 2018. The state's population dipped below 39 million to 38.965 million last July, according to Census data released in March, the lowest since 2015.
Pennsylvania Mall Conversion Bill Passes House
If passed, the bill would promote the adaptive reuse of defunct commercial buildings.
Google Maps Introduces New Transit, EV Features
It will now be easier to find electric car charging stations and transit options.
Ohio Lawmakers Propose Incentivizing Housing Production
A proposed bill would take a carrot approach to stimulating housing production through a grant program that would reward cities that implement pro-housing policies.
Chicago Awarded $2M Reconnecting Communities Grant
Community advocates say the city’s plan may not do enough to reverse the negative impacts of a major expressway.
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Licking County
Barrett Planning Group LLC
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
Mpact Transit + Community
HUD's Office of Policy Development and Research
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ULI Northwest Arkansas
Town of Zionsville
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.
