North America
Airlines Desert Small Towns, Despite Costly Investments in Infrastructure
If you build it, will they come? Not in Hagerstown, Maryland, where airlines have left town despite a brand new runway.
Agrarian Past Drives South Atlantic Sprawl
North Carolina bills itself as the "good growth state." But as North Carolina's population heads toward 10 million, the state's low-density pattern of development is straining the infrastructure.
Learning From Vancouver
Scholar and Brookings Fellow Christopher B. Leinberger says Vancouver provides an accessible model for American cities as they look for examples of sustainable development done right.
New Urban Developers Surviving The Current Economic Storm
As the housing industry flounders, New Urbanist developers are using the flexibility inherent in their community plans to their advantage.
A Reminder to the City: Neighborhoods Are Building Blocks of Civic Life
Neighborhoods -- their habits, their participants, and their values -- are what create and define value in a city and in a home. Cities need to embrace this fact if they want to preserve values and retain residents.
German City a Model for 'Sane Transportation'
The German city of Bremen has lessons to teach North American cities about sustainable transportation, according to this article from The Toronto Star.
Form-Based Zoning on Main Street
National Trust Main Street Center Program Officer Nick Kalogersis, AICP gives a primer on form-based zoning and its relavance to traditional commercial district revitalization.
Put up a Park in the Lot
Ruben Anderson suggests that if automobile parking could be kept to properties, that could free up the former on-street parking to become Garden Streets, so that cities could grow much more of their own produce.
Livin' La Vida Localism
In this article from Metropolis, dystopian author and urban critic James Howard Kunstler riffs on localism.
BRT Spreads Across North America
This report from Metro Magazine outlines 25 North American cities currently planning bus rapid transit lines.
Suburbia Isn't To Blame For Obesity
New research suggests that urban sprawl doesn't cause weight gain in residents, though it does attract people who are inclined to be heavy and prefer to move around by car.
The Ambiguity and Resilience of the Urbanity Myth
Thomas Wüst’s semiotic work on urbanity reviews literary contributions on the topic of urbanity, coming to the harsh conclusion that urbanity is, after all, nothing but a myth, and therefore likely to be instrumentalized by "symbolic politics".
Lawn Greens
If 'peak oil' makes oil-intensive industrial agriculture economically unfeasible, will suburbanites need to turn their lawns into farming plots?
Urban Planning and Musical Categories: Exploring the Notion of Improvisation
This paper shows how urban development may be considered in terms of musical categories, and associates spontaneous and informal urban actions with their analog in musical discourse: improvisation.
No Community Is An Island: Tributary and the Young & the Restless
A new approach to urbanism in suburban Atlanta, the Tributary community is based on a mixed-use master plan integrating and interconnecting a range of residential neighborhoods, a village center, a town center, and more.
We Built This City on Rock and Roll
Richard Florida's latest research shows that vibrant music "scenes" -- or a city's "audio identity" -- are good indicators of urban vitality.
The Life And Death Of The Shopping Mall
Once thriving, America's indoor shopping malls are on the decline, and many predict their death may finally come within the next few years.
Is New Urbanism The Way To A Green Future?
This article from Time discusses the burden development places on the environment and how New Urbanism seeks to mitigate this burden.
Architects as Developers: Five Portraits
From smaller residential projects to vast mixed-use developments, more and more architects are crossing over into development work, bringing a fresh perspective to the process.
Suburban Tent City?
As foreclosure rates rise across the country, former homeowners are seeking shelter in suburban "tent cities" while municipalities struggle to cope with extra costs and declining tax revenues.
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.
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
