Have NIMBYs and YIMBYs arguing in your neighborhood? Scott Doyon talks residential development.
"Today’s new, market rate housing is tomorrow’s more affordable second tier housing. And that’s something we don’t want to acknowledge because, if we do, we have to also acknowledge that today’s efforts to stop the construction of new housing might in effect be stealing housing from tomorrow’s workforce."
"That’s a tension currently playing out in high cost markets around the country (something explored last week by my colleague, Ben Brown) where factions on one side advocate for significant new investments in housing to meet exploding demand and ultimately cool costs (YIMBYs) while those on the other side push for neighborhood preservation to keep new development, which is seen to usher in higher costs for all, at bay (NIMBYs), both adamant that they represent the solution to rapidly escalating costs."
Doyon uses comic strips to discuss this tension, and points us back to indigenous wisdom that calls for 50-year plans.
Read the full story: Here Today, Gone Tomorrow, Here the Day After That
Innovation when Good Planning Policy Has Become the Norm
Scott Doyon argues for a stripped-down, back-to-basics 'punk rock' approach to urban growth and development to replace the 'rock and roll' excesses of planning during the housing boom; and he profiles the new innovators who are doing just that.
Boston is hard to build housing in: its chief of planning wants to keep it that way
Chief of Planning Kairos Shen said she would not make changes to Boston’s affordability requirements for new housing, which critics say have slowed down development.
Will sprawl save California?
California residents will vote on Proposition 45 in November, which would make it easier to build large housing developments on the outskirts of the state’s cities.
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.
US buildings threatened, destroyed by fires set to triple by 2060
Researchers found a high fire risk for socioeconomically vulnerable neighborhoods in the American West.
LA residents may be allowed to paint their own crosswalks
Councilwoman Katy Yaroslavsky put out a motion instructing the Los Angeles Department of Public Transportation to study the feasibility of allowing volunteers to paint crosswalks.
Dallas moves to overhaul its zoning code
The city's zoning reform will allow more multi-family and mixed-use developments.
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
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority