Chris Stines is Planetizen's former Editor and the founder of Urban Insight, a leading digital agency. Chris has 25 years of experience in technology consulting and urban planning and has served as a consultant to public sector state, county, and local agencies, Fortune 500 private firms, educational institutions, and nonprofit organizations.
Gated Communities Command A Premium
<p>Houses in gated communities generally command values 5-7% higher than equivalent houses non-gated communities. Despite the rapid growth of gated communities, many critics question the value.</p>
FEMA's Toxic Trailers?
<p>The Nation magazine investigates whether 100,000 FEMA-purchased trailers are releasing toxic fumes from materials used in their construction, and made worse by low quality standards as the trailers were constructed at breakneck speeds.</p>
'Adult Studio' Better Use For Historic Building Than Housing
<p>After the San Francisco Planning Department rejects several condo projects for the city's historic State Armory and Arsenal Building on the edge of the Mission District, an Internet pornography studio buys the building to make films.</p>
Unmanned Cars Ready To Navigate Traffic Within A Few Years?
<p>The winners of last year's Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) artificial intelligence road race claim that they'll have a car ready to navigate urban traffic in less than a year.</p>
Should Economic Development Efforts Be Place-Based or People-Based?
<p>Randall Crane offers an introduction to the research literature around place-based versus people-based policies for economic development as he begins his research into systematic comparative assessments of the two policies.</p>