Planning

Can the Olympic bid provide an impetus for long-range planning for the Boston metropolitan area?

January 18, 2015 - CommonWealth

An article by Woodbury University Professor Anthony Fontenot examines the effects of a history of opposition to planning as a centralized arm of the state, and proposes a way forward.

January 13, 2015 - Places Journal

Transportation for America has released "The Innovative MPO"—a guidebook of sorts that provides lessons in successful regional planning.

January 13, 2015 - Streetsblog USA

John King writes that the "Gallery + Ideas Forum" at the Presidio in San Francisco provides an excellent model for presenting issues and ideas of planning and urban design to the public.

January 10, 2015 - San Francisco Chronicle

William Fulton pens a column for the U-T San Diego assessing the city of San Diego's transition from suburban to urban after 18 months on the job as planning director.

January 6, 2015 - U-T San Diego

A deeper look at the traffic data on Planetizen reveals trends from the planning and urban design conversation of 2014.

December 31, 2014 - James Brasuell

F. Kaid Benfield provides analysis of the Bethesda Downtown Plan, calling the plan for the bustling Maryland suburb an opportunity to set a standard of urban sustainability for other communities.

December 30, 2014 - The Huffington Post

File under tools for the tool kit: Jarrett Walker of Human Transit shares details about Nearmap, an aerial photography tool that serves as a helpful alternative to Google Earth.

December 29, 2014 - Human Transit

Mike Ferguson reports on the process of updating the growth plan—working title "Beyond Billings"—for the city of Billings, Montana.

December 23, 2014 - Billings Gazette

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.

December 17, 2014 - CityLab

How do you create a plan document that grabs the attention of your audience and generates feedback? In Central Arkansas, citizens are exploring and experiencing an interactive online draft plan that makes participation easy and fun.

December 17, 2014 - Engaging Cities

For urban planners, it’s easy to focus on the negatives of the job. Los Angeles County Planner Clement Lau reminds us of some of the positive trends in planning, especially in Los Angeles.

December 10, 2014 - UrbDeZine

Planning exercises typically require intense baseline data collection, extensive community engagement, visioning, number crunching, analysis, modeling, forecasting, more analysis, tradeoffs, revisions to the baseline data collected at the onset

December 9, 2014 - Civicly

Planetizen is pleased to release its list of the ten best books in urban planning, design, and development published in 2014.

December 8, 2014 - James Brasuell

The Arts District in Downtown Los Angeles has seen plenty of chic newcomers in recent years—high-end cafes, restaurants, and expensive lofts. But a recently revealed plan that would allow new, dense construction has sparked controversy.

December 3, 2014 - Los Angeles Times

At this time of year, many prospective graduate students are asking themselves if they should apply to planning programs. This is a good question. Planning is a diverse field and it can be hard to figure out if it will be the right fit.

November 26, 2014 - Ann Forsyth

When Los Angeles County Planner Jonathan P. Bell wrote about informal housing in the region, several commenters responded. So Bell decided to answer questions and critics.

November 18, 2014 - UrbDeZine

Rachel Dovey shares some of the secrets to the success of Grand Rapids, Michigan after a year of transit improvements in the small city.

November 2, 2014 - Next City

Tom Sanchez and Nader Afzalan explore the age old question, "what is planning?" in their new report published earlier this week.

October 31, 2014 - Tom Sanchez

Although growth in Union County outside of Charlotte has subsided, county officials aim to balance a legacy of unplanned growth with new opportunities for commercial development and countywide transportation.

October 27, 2014 - Charlotte Observer