Demographics

School Closures Hurting Canadian Communities

Its birth rate declining, Canada is facing an unprecedented drop in school enrollments, leading to a wave of closures.

September 4, 2008 - The Globe and Mail

A Move Back into Cities Indicates Changing Middle-Class Mores

Author Alan Ehrenhalt says that conditions are ripe for the permanent return of downtown residential neighborhoods, and that a "demographic inversion" has already begun in Manhattan, Chicago and Washington, DC, among other cities.

August 1, 2008 - The New Republic

Is Detroit Half-Empty, Or Half-Full?

Two years ago I saw John Norquist, former Mayor of Milwaukee and current President and CEO of the Congress for the New Urbanism, give a presentation on the state of America’s cities. During the slide show, Norquist used two sets of images to effectively convey a point about urban disinvestment in America. The first set of images was of Berlin and Detroit circa 1945. Unsurprisingly, the Berlin image displayed a war-torn and rubble-strewn city, while the Detroit image revealed why it was once called the Paris of the Midwest -- it was simply elegant.  However, the second set of images displayed the same two cities 60 years later. It was as if Detroit had been through an epic war and not Berlin.

June 3, 2007 - Mike Lydon

Boomer Megacities: Tokyo As a Barometer for the Developed World?

I had heard stories about this the last time I visited Japan in 2004, but this month's Tokyo city briefing from The Economist brought this trend back to my attention. It seems retiring boomers are abandoning their suburban bedroom communities to return to the metropolitan core - presumably to be near friends, cultural attractions, and other amenities (health care? education?). I've seen rumblings of this as well in the New York metro area.

April 17, 2007 - Anthony Townsend

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.

Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

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The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

100 Most Influential Urbanists

The who's who of urbanism, according to Planetizen readers.

Urban Planning Creators You Should Know

A short list of voices on social, video, and podcasting platforms.