Planetizen Newswire
Keep up with essential planning news and commentary, delivered to your inbox every Monday and Thursday.
Democracy
On June 27, the Supreme Court didn't just rule on the Census Bureau's citizenship question. It also decided that it wasn't their business to consider how congressional districts are drawn, which will likely reduce the influence of cities.
The New York Times
Facial recognition software has the possibility to change public life completely. Countries and cities should be careful to consider the consequences of adopting the technology.
The Guardian
A think-piece published by CityLab argues that public space, and the ideals it embodies, are under threat from the racist groups that gathered in Charlottesville, Virginia last weekend.
CityLab
Ironically, some of the greatest architecture of the past came from the most nefarious of sources: monarchies and dictatorships. Democratic design, though, can be bland and generic. What of design in our new undemocratic age?
Common Edge
A new guide helps communities set up groups that can help analyze their neighborhood data and put it to good use.
Next City
Feature
A reply to skeptics about the democratic power and potential of civic crowdfunding platforms.
The tech industry's push into San Francisco has entailed a fight for political and cultural legitimacy as well as social justice--one that shakes up conventional wisdom about conservatism, progressivism, and progress itself.
The Nation
Blog post
More thoughts on how public participation in the placemaking process can create better places and better functioning democracies.
In the first entry in a series exploring the connection between the processes and products of Placemaking and city governance, PPS explores how "Place Governance" can increase leadership, equity, and cohesion among citizens.
Project for Public Spaces blog
Marcus Tudehope offers 12 reasons why community-led counting and mapping of the urban poor can be an effective tool for putting "power and democracy" into their hands.
The Global Urbanist
The City Council of Vallejo, California, approved the first city-wide Participatory Budgeting process in the US this week. Residents will directly decide how to spend around $3 million from new sales tax revenue.
Times Herald
In this op-ed for <em>The Detroit News</em>, Rob Goodspeed argues that Detroit needs to exert more effort to dialog with its citizens about how the city should change.
The Detroit News
Feature
The Tea Party has it all wrong, writes Joel Mills. Urban planning is not a radical, elitist agenda, but the best example of local democracy available today.
Hundreds of townships in Indiana serve fewer than 1,000 people each, prompting some government officials to call for consolidation to reduce wasted resources.
The Indianapolis Star
RThe impact of cities is spreading beyond local and even national borders, argues Robert Neuwirth in this piece from <em>What Matters</em>.
What Matters
Beth Novick, author of <em>Wiki Government</em>, says that today's technology invites us to "rethink not only our democratic institutions, but our democratic theory."
WorldChanging
In a Chicago Tribune op-ed, Alderman Joe Moore explains why he is letting residents decide how to spend his $1.3m ward budget, through the first Participatory Budgeting process in the US.
Chicago Tribune
In a Chicago Tribune op-ed, Alderman Joe Moore explains why he is letting residents decide how to spend his $1.3 ward budget, through the first Participatory Budgeting process in the US.
Chicago Tribune
<p>Mark Kingwell observes the sharp -- and deadly -- contrast between shining Shanghai skyscrapers and the poorly-built prefab concrete structures in China's rural areas that proved to be deathtraps in the recent earthquake.</p>
The Globe & Mail
Blog post
Are politicians becoming obsolete in the age of the Internet? Are they simply the 'middle-men' that will be replaced by votes cast directly by citizens? This was the issue before a veritable rock-star cast of poliltical insiders from California and around the country. So what is the G-Word?
