Urban Development

Downtown Nashville

Giant Mixed-Used Development Project in Nashville Levels With Coronavirus Impact

Is the density of a 6.2 acre mixed-use development too much for the coronavirus era? Fifth + Broadway developers weigh in on the future of the project.

July 19, 2020 - Bloomberg CityLab

Zoning Code

What Is a Form-Based Code?

Form-based codes are a variety of development regulation that departs significantly from the land use control approach of most zoning codes in the United States.

July 16, 2020 - James Brasuell

Maryland and Virginia

David Alpert to Step Down at Greater Greater Washington

Leadership change is coming to one of the best local sources of planning news in the country, after Greater Greater Washington founder and executive director David Alpert announced plans to move on.

July 16, 2020 - Greater Greater Washington

Salt Lake City

20 Years Later: Envision Utah's Quality Growth Strategy Deemed a Massive Success

The state of Utah created Envision Utah in the late 1990s to address growth while maintaining quality of life and protecting the environment in the state. The plan set goals for 2020, so it's time to evaluate its success.

July 16, 2020 - The Salt Lake Tribune

Infrastructure

Trump's Latest Deregulatory Itch: The National Environmental Policy Act

In a move called "one of the biggest — and most audacious — deregulatory actions of the Trump administration," President Trump yesterday announced plans to weaken the National Environmental Policy Act for federal infrastructure projects.

July 16, 2020 - The New York Times

New York Development

What Are Zoning Codes?

Local governments use zoning codes to define what can and cannot be built. While comprehensive plans and other kinds of plans lay out a vision for the future, zoning codes offer the legal tools to implement that vision.

July 15, 2020 - James Brasuell

Cincinnati, Ohio

Past Civil Unrest Sets the Table for Today's Gentrification

The story is similar in Washington, D.C., Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Miami, Cincinnati, and Boston: scenes of widespread destruction—the fires, looting, and property damage of civil unrest—sow the seeds for redevelopment and gentrification.

July 15, 2020 - The New York Times

Cities for People

Jan Gehl on 60 Years of Designing Cities for People

The 10th anniversary of "Cities for People" offers the occasion for this interview with Jan Gehl, who has devoted a 60-year career to ideas about humanistic city planning—ideas of increasing relevance in 2020.

July 15, 2020 - Jan Gehl

African American

New Homes Selling Like Hotcakes

New homes, located mostly on the fringe of developed areas, are selling at a torrid pace this summer.

July 14, 2020 - CNBC

Choice Neighborhoods

Lawyers Connect Breonna Taylor's Murder to Choice Neighborhoods Initiative in Louisville

The lawyers for Breonna Taylor accuse police in Louisville of acting on behalf of a redevelopment plan led by the city with funding support from the federal government.

July 14, 2020 - Louisville Courier Journal

COVID-19

Resurgence Delayed—or a Pandemic Exodus?

In this interview with Emily Badger of the New York Times, Natalie Moore of WBEZ Chicago, and Amanda Kolson Hurley of Bloomberg Businessweek, Slate's Henry Grabar asks about the future viability of America's cities and suburbs in a time of COVID-19

July 14, 2020 - Slate

Florida Retirement Community

The Stage for Trump's Racist Tweet: The Villages, Florida

The Villages is one of the strangest, and most significant, planning and development stories in recent memory—with surprisingly regular relevance in the media and numerous intersections to politics and culture.

July 13, 2020 - James Brasuell

Los Angeles in 1939, as determined by the  Home Owners’ Loan Corporation (HOLC).

Lessons From Decades of Racist Land Policy

President and CEO of the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy Dr. George McCarthy traces the legacy of racist policy and offers guidance toward an economic recovery that begins to undo systemic racism.

July 13, 2020 - Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

Berkeley Hills Bay Area

Groundbreaking Affordable Housing and Homeless Shelter Project Underway in Berkeley

A new Berkeley development, the largest affordable housing development in city history, is slated to house 200 low-income and homeless residents by May 2022.

July 13, 2020 - The Mercury News

Columbia University Athletics

A New Generation of Community-Led Planning in New York

With a benchmark success in demanding rights for the community during an ongoing rezoning process in Inwood, a neighborhood in Manhattan, a new generation of community-led resistance to top-down planning is coalescing in New York City.

July 13, 2020 - Yes!

London, England

Staten Island Ferris Wheel Back From the Dead

With much of the infrastructure for the failed, 630-foot Ferris wheel project partially in place, investors are looking for ways to bring the New York Wheel back to life.

July 12, 2020 - The Architect's Newspaper

Skid Row Los Angeles

Lack of Federal and State Subsidies Slow Homeless Housing Development in L.A.

Developments funded by Los Angeles' Proposition HHH homeless housing bond has been delayed for three key reasons.

July 10, 2020 - Los Angeles Times

Manhattan, New York City, New York

Pandemic-Proof Real Estate: Whither NYC?

The president of Hudson Companies and The Planning Report’s first editor, David Kramer, discusses New York City’s COVID response and recovery and its likely impact on multifamily housing development going forward.

July 10, 2020 - The Planning Report

Frances Goldin—Revolutionary, Organizer, Visionary—Joins the Ancestors at Age 95

Frances Goldin influenced a generation of housing organizers. Her vision was of a multiracial, multiethnic community based on the principles of justice. Her instruction to us was to fight for it.

July 10, 2020 - Shelterforce Magazine

Electric Car Charging

A New 'Playbook' for Infrastructure Development

The New Partnership on Infrastructure coalition's "America's New Playbook for Infrastructure" calls for just and resilient development moving forward from the coronavirus pandemic.

July 9, 2020 - Smart Cities Dive

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.

Top Schools

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.