Urban Development

With one of the fastest growing economies in the world, Brazil is at the cusp of major change. Arup's Gustavo Ferreria discusses the role that public-private partnerships are playing in modernizing and expanding the country's infrastructure systems.

March 11, 2015 - Arup Connect

Bloomberg Philanthropies will fund an "Innovation Delivery Team" in Los Angeles to approach the challenge of revitalizing urban neighborhoods while also creating improvements for existing populations.

March 10, 2015 - The Planning Report

Former HUD counsel and current Philadelphia mayoral contender Nelson Diaz laid the groundwork for "entrepreneurial" approaches to public housing. Whether the resulting projects were effective is up for debate.

March 10, 2015 - PlanPhilly

An interview with Ellen Dunham-Jones, co-author of "Retrofitting Suburbia," and Hazel Borys.

March 10, 2015 - PlaceShakers

A new scholarly paper argues that ancient and modern cities can be usefully analyzed in a comparative perspective. But what you do with the comps depends on how much you value similarities versus differences in urban form.

March 9, 2015 - Dean Saitta

In recent years, tactical urbanism has helped reinvent many streets and sidewalks in center cities, creating new public spaces. But many spaces remain untouched. Anuj Gupta argues that reinvented schoolyards can be the next great public spaces.

March 8, 2015 - Philadelphia Magazine

Dylan Gentile, a 15-year-old resident of DeFuniak Springs, Florida, offers inspiration in the form of proactive, positive engagement with the built environment, and already an impressive resume of accomplishments.

March 7, 2015 - CityLab

Instead of "Bikers First!" or "Creative Class First!" James Siegel, president of Kaboom!, proposes an alternative for cities: "Kids First!"

March 6, 2015 - Medium

The environmental think tank environmental Sustainable Prosperity has created a handy infographic describing the benefits of dense urban development compared to sprawl.

March 6, 2015 - Streetsblog USA

Oakland, as the urban counterpart to San Francisco in the Bay Area, is on a lot of people's radar as a place to improve on some of the lessons of recent waves of urbanization. What planning precedents shaped the city on the other side of the Bay?

March 6, 2015 - The Urbanist

A new think tank to promote suburban growth has been established in Houston by arguably the media's highest-profile supporters of suburban growth.

March 5, 2015 - Houston Chronicle

Be a citizen, not just a consumer.

March 5, 2015 - PlaceShakers

In some places, it might be hard to imagine even considering a cap on the development of commercial development. Palo Alto, home to Stanford University and a hot bed of California's tech industry, did just that in City Council earlier this week.

March 4, 2015 - Palo Alto Weekly

With as many as a half-dozen groups vying to develop an NFL stadium in Los Angeles, things were bound to get ugly. And they did. A report warns of a possible terrorist attack at one stadium site. The report's publisher? Backers of a rival stadium.

March 4, 2015 - California Planning & Development Report

Alain de Botton has an idea that beauty is not in the eye of the beholder, when it comes to cities anyways. He also proposes a system for evaluating the beauty of the world's cities (spoiler: most cities don't qualify).

March 4, 2015 - CityLab

Historic planning documents, like those found in the APA's Planning Advisory Service, are full of lessons about how past planning doctrines failed their intentions, and it's always a good time for planners to re-evaluate their antecedents.

March 3, 2015 - Strong Towns

An article by Sven Borg for the Idaho Statesmen introduces the concept of infill while also detailing some of the challenges facing a wave of development in Downtown Boise.

March 3, 2015 - Idaho Statesman

A proposed development in in the North Loop section of Minneapolis would be the first of its kind. According to the architect behind the design, the "T3" project, as its known, could be a harbinger of buildings to come.

March 3, 2015 - MinnPost

Let's discuss how community planning could be fundamentally reorganized to improve both efficiency and placemaking.

March 2, 2015 - Better Cities & Towns

The design reveal is more than just a showcase for architects Bjarke Ingels and Thomas Heatherwick. The project also raises tough questions about how far suburban cities in the South Bay Area are willing to go to support the current tech boom.

March 2, 2015 - New York Times