Planning Tools
A New Green Thumb Tool for Planners
The Greenprint Resource Hub aims to integrate open space, parks, and agriculture into city and regional planning efforts.
A Toolkit for Solving California's Housing Crisis
The McKinsey Global Institute wants to help California build 3.5 million homes by 2025.
The 'Housing Development Dashboard' Promises a New Understanding of Housing Policy
A new set of tools from the U.C. Berkeley Terner Center for Housing Innovation offers insight into how projects fit into the policy landscape, as well as how changes to the policy landscape could impact development.
New Tool Accesses Chicago Open Data
OpenGrid gathers together Chicago's open data, letting users specify areas of focus on a map of the city. Users can also overlay different datasets on the same map.
Remix Promises to Streamline Transit Planning
Based out of San Francisco, Remix is an intuitive, data-rich tool for transit planners as they consider new routes. All you need to do is draw out the line on a map and add stops.
Study: Trip Generation Manual Produces 'Phantom Trips'
Research suggests that the Trip Generation Manual—a familiar tool for planners calculating the vehicle trips expected to be generated by developments of various sizes and uses—produces "phantom trips" and unneeded automobile infrastructure.
Courtin' Participation With a Bluegrass Music Video
To kick off its Legacy Plan update process, the Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, NC planning board made a music video featuring an original song, a bluegrass band and some familiar scenes.
Community Transforms Street Overnight
Local residents bring life back a desolate line of shops in Oak Cliff, a streetcar suburb of Dallas, overnight. The intention of the Better Block project is to demonstrate the value of pedestrian friendly spaces and encourage future investments.
Sound Planning
For the last couple of years I have been tracking decision support tools that bring audio into the planning process. At our PLACEMATTERS06 conference, Harris Miller Miller & Hanson Inc. (HMMH) demonstrated their suite of acoustical environmental tools for planning, including a simple online soundbuilder enabling visitors to create different mixes with several sound overlays.
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
