World
Global issues, U.N., etc.
How Defensive Fortifications Shaped Cities
A post on Gizmodo traces the long and evolving history of defensive fortifications and how they influenced how cities were built and how people lived.
What Makes a City Global?
Finding the existing frameworks for describing "global cities" to be highly divergent, Aaron Renn suggests his own and requests feedback to continue improving the scheme.
An Aerial Photography Tool for Planners
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.
Buildings Gone Bad: 2014's Worst Architecture
The designs of architecture's most famous practitioners inspire the most public forms of attention and criticism. A recent column in Slate doesn't shy away from the latter.
Imagining a Self-Contained, Vertical City
A new book makes the case for vertical cities, following a 32-point manifesto about the needs of future cities.
The Online Tool for Comparing Bus Rapid Transit Data
A tool from EMRARQ Brasil allows users to compile and compare data on the use and growth of bus rapid transit around the world, including in the United States, where 18 cities now use BRT or bus priority corridors.
Study: Youth Learn Reckless Driving Habits at the Movies
Researchers in the Behavioral Science Institute at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands produced evidence that movies like Fast and the Furious influence the driving of young people.
5 Ways Technology Can Improve Urban Design
Technology is a great benefit for urban design and urban planning. Not only does it help boost productivity for design and urban planning teams, but it also increases team collaboration, citizen engagement, attention to detail, and accuracy.
Friday Night Lights: NASA Can See Your Holiday Lights from Space
One of the first things researchers noticed when nighttime images from the Suomi NPP satellite were beamed back to Earth: the planet's ambient lighting changes drastically during certain holidays, like Christmas and Ramadan.
Urban vs. Suburban: The Debate Continues
However your read the tea leaves, if it's true the 'burbs are reinventing themselves in the new era, it’s walkable, compact urbanism that's providing a game plan.
The Most Popular Planetizen Posts of 2014
We've been collecting data on the posts you made the most popular for the year 2014.
Study: 'It's hard to beat gasoline' on Air Quality
A University of Minnesota study published in PNAS looks at alternatives including ethanol and electricity and determined that "it's hard to beat gasoline." Even electric vehicles can do better or worse depending on how utilities source electricity.
Mapping the Locavore's Food Supply
FiveThirtyEight and ESPN recently produced a short documentary about the creators of Falling Fruit—a website that maps food sources in cities around the world.
Op-Ed Critiques Architecture: from 'Infinitesimal Specks' to 'Sprawling Dreck'
Steven Bingler and Martin C. Pedersen pen a withering critique of the architecture profession's obsession with glamorous contracts at the expense of context-sensitive, community-focused designs.
Urban Mobility Plans Key To More Efficient and Integrated Planning
"Urban Mobility Plans – National Approaches and Local Practice," a new guidebook by the Sustainable Urban Transportation Project, describes specific policies and planning practices to maximize urban transport system efficiency.
International Climate Accord Reached in Lima
Known as the Lima Accord, after the capital of Peru where representatives from 200 nations met for two weeks, a deal was reached to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in preparation for talks to be held in Paris in December. But is it strong enough?
A Map of Worldwide Speed Limits
Do you have a need for speed? Or at least a need to know the speed limit anywhere in the world? Greater Greater Washington has just the map for you.
Growing Suburbs for the Good for the World
The Economist has published a pair of feature articles examining the growth of suburbs around the world in the hopes of avoiding the mistakes of the West.
Op-Ed: Urban Design Should Mind the Line Between 'Cute' and 'Safe'
Sarah Goodyear writes a dissenting take on the "cutestification" of urban design—calling for a priority on clean and safe over "fun."
Six Helpful Apps for Urban Designers
Leslie Clagett shares a list of apps for urban designers (helpful to project managers, too) "to streamline design problems, decision making, and materials selection."
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
New York City School Construction Authority
Village of Glen Ellyn
Central Transportation Planning Staff/Boston Region MPO
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Regional Transportation Commission of Southern Nevada
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
