New Orleans
"Make It Right" Takes Wrong Step in Selection of Sustainable Materials
In the search for cutting edge, sustainable construction techniques, Brad Pitt's Make It Right Foundation may have taken a wrong step in its selection of materials. The nonprofit is spending $150,000 to replace rotting stairs and decks.
Streetcars and Recovery
A study of streetcar-adjacent development patterns in New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina provides lessons for the many U.S. cities building and planning new streetcar lines.
What Will It Take to Move Detroit's Holdout Homeowners?
Marooned in an ocean of crumbling homes, declining city services, stray dogs, and crime, as many as 10,000 Detroiters live in areas that are unlikely to rebound. What incentives can the city devise to get them to relocate?
New Orleans' New Stormwater Plan: Let It Flood
New Orleans is planning a novel approach to managing the city's perpetual threat of floods. Instead of trying to prevent and pump out every last drop, the city will slow and store stormwater under a 50-year, $6.2 billion program of retrofits.
Does New Orleans Need a New Tourism Icon?
The centerpiece of a $500 million plan for redeveloping New Orleans' riverfront is an 'iconic' sculpture, replacing the empty World Trade Center tower. Roberta Brandes Gratz argues the city should focus on small steps instead of a tourism boondoggle.
New Orleans is the New Hollywood
In 2002, Louisiana lawmakers passed a 30 percent film tax credit. Since then, the state has become the third most productive in the industry, second only to New York and California.
Brad Pitt Struggles to Make It Right in New Orleans
Brad Pitt's Make It Right foundation has built 90 cutting-edge homes in New Orleans' largely abandoned Lower Ninth Ward. Stores and services have stayed away, however, prompting many to wonder if the area will ever become a livable community again.
Making a Place for Artists in New Orleans
Appealing to artists is a common method of urban revitalization, but keeping artists and musicians around after a community is revitalized is an equally difficult task.
How Much Did the Super Bowl Cost Taxpayers This Year?
With the Super Bowl just around the corner, it's time to reconsider the allegiance of cities to professional sports teams.
Enjoy the Images of the Superdome, Because You Helped Pay For It
Mark Byrnes explains the recent renovations - both inside and outside - of New Orleans' Superdome, home to Sunday's Super Bowl. The work was funded, at least in part, by FEMA.
Katrina and Sandy: Devastating Storms, But That's Where the Similarities End
Roberta Brandes Gratz examines the many differences, and few similarities, between the two most devastating urban storms of recent memory. Among the most elemental differences: one devastated neighborhoods, one a city; one was man-made, one natural.
Bold Pragmatism of Urban Innovators
While Washington bickers over partisan issues, mayors in the rest of the country are showing strong leadership and innovation. Newsweek has compiled a list of the top cities pushing education reform, public safety, quality of life, and job creation.
Is a Highway Teardown in Store for New Orleans?
Thanks to a $2 million federal grant, New Orleans is embarking on a study focused on improving the city's Claiborne Avenue corridor, which sits adjacent to an elevated stretch of Interstate 10. The project's public outreach effort begins next month.
What Do America's Cities Stand to Lose from Rising Seas?
In an astonishing interactive graphic and accompanying opinion piece, Benjamin Strauss and Roberr Kopp outline several likely scenarios for the impact of rising seas on America's urban areas. New Orleans and Miami Beach could be completely submerged.
New Orleans Crowdsources Renewal
After months of development, a group of Code for America fellows has unveiled a new web application that seeks to assist communities in identifying and cleaning up New Orleans's blighted properties, reports Emily Badger.
New Orleans Reborn: Development Returns to the Big Easy
New Orleans is shaking its distressed-city status as an influx of investment heads to town. National retailers and developers, many of them first-time investors in the city, are looking to set up shop.
New Orleans Prepares for Biggest Test Since Katrina
Seven years after Katrina made mincemeat of the city's flood protections, Hurricane Isaac is bearing down on the Crescent City. Ingrid Norton looks at what's different this time around.
New Orleans Police Agree to Federal Overhaul
After years of scandal, New Orleans accepts that the time for change has come.
America's Fastest Growing Cities Revealed
With many of America's largest metros experiencing robust growth, Michael Sauter, Alexander Hess and Elisabeth Uible of 24/7 Wall St. have compiled a list of the fastest growing cities in the country.
Mapping Food Deserts in New Orleans
New Orleans has only one supermarket for every 350,000 residents, and they are often in locations that are more than a mile from where low-income residents live, writes Rosa Ramirez.
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
University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS)
Hunter College, City University of New York (CUNY)
The Architects Foundation
City of Cambridge
Montrose County
The Pocatello Development Authority
