Market Economics
Who's Benefitting From Historic Preservation?
As wealthy communities learn to use historic districts to inflate property values, socially conscious urbanists must think twice about the purpose and place of preservation, Will Doig reports.
Jane Jacobs on "Truth," Discovery and the Future of the Soviet Union
As just about everyone in the planning profession now knows, this is the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of The Death and Life of Great American Cities by urbanist icon Jane Jacobs. While Death and Life was itself iconic, Jane Jacobs was also a great public intellectual who continually built on her ideas in subsequent books and articles.
Turning Cities into Innovation Centers
Saul Kaplan says cities should be transformed into innovation centers to stay competitive and become the venue of a "new economic conversation".
Best Buy Refuses to Conform to Design Standards
Waynesville, North Carolina Mayor Gavin Brown is forced to give up on pedestrian-friendly design to save potential jobs from Best Buy.
Economists vs. Planners? Complements, Not Substitutes
Often, planners and economists seem to be at odds. Actually, a better description would be talking past each other—literally two ships passing in the night. Planners often think economists are too narrowly focused on dollars, cents, and rational decisionmaking. Economists can’t understand why planners don’t recognize the real world of markets and why incentives matter—a lot.
Slicing Water Planning With Okham's Razor
I first learned of Okham’s Razor in an undergraduate economics class. Also called the Law of Parsimony, the idea states that the simplest of two competing ideas or theories is preferable to the more complicated one.
An Outbreak Of Beauty and Happiness?
In spite of my sense that we are heading pell mell into the gloom of global warming, catastrophic conflict and hopeless mediocrity, I’ve noticed a hopeful trend. Beauty and happiness have been rehabilitated from irrelevant to necessary. It may not be an avalanche, but proponents are showing up in unusual places: a book by an environmental conservationist, another by an historian philosopher, and a Mother Jones article about the economy. Can this portend a trend?
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
