Exclusives

BLOG POST

<p> Back in 2006, when I was working at <a href="http://www.reconnectingamerica.org" title="Reconnecting America">Reconnecting America</a> (A non-profit that promotes and studies transit-oriented development), I ended up crossing paths with a dedicated and intelligent woman named Ann Cheng. In her late-20s, she was working for an organization known as the Transportation and Land Use Coalition (they&#39;ve since gone with the more attractive moniker <a href="http://transformca.org/">TransForm</a>).  </p>

December 8 - Tim Halbur

FEATURE

New neighborhood-level data from the walkability rating website Walk Score has broadened the view of what it means to live in a walkable city.

December 6 - Nate Berg

FEATURE

December 2 - Trent Noll

BLOG POST

Two major international decisions are being made today: which countries will host the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. The selected hosts will undoubtedly celebrate their victories, and look forward to the soft and hard benefits of hosting this most watched of sporting events. The host countries should also take care to prepare for negative impacts – short- and long-term effects that play out in physical, social and economic ways. Who gets selected is surely important in some ways, but when considering these mega-events in terms of their potential impact on the places in which they&#39;re held, who hosts the World Cup doesn&#39;t really matter.

December 2 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> As students have been choosing classes over the last year, one question I’ve received is: how important is the teacher vs. the subject matter? In general, I argue, your own attitude is the most important factor in how well you learn. However, truly terrible teaching can make that more difficult and truly wonderful teaching can change your life for the better.</p>

December 1 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

<p>It is often - and very inaccurately - said that people hate change.  When people get married - they are overjoyed.  When they hold the winning lottery ticket, or have children or get a raise or a promotion or a new car, they are thrilled.  These are forms of change that illustrate the point that change is not what people hate; what people have trouble with is certain forms of change.  This becomes especially relevant to planners and designers and community developers who are part of processes - shaping, facilitating, leading, participating in, or otherwise advocating for one form of change or another.</p>

November 30 - Charles Buki

FEATURE

November 29 - Mary Campbell Gallagher

FEATURE

Planetizen is pleased to release its ninth annual list of the ten best books in urban planning, design and development published in 2010. This year's selection includes some big names, some big ideas -- and a book called "Toilet."

November 22 - Abhijeet Chavan

BLOG POST

<p> In a recent blog post,(1) highway expert Alan Pisarski suggests that highway-oriented sprawl development is somehow necessary for the development of modern labor markets.(2) Pisarski writes that regional job markets are jobs are more specialized today than they were in his youth, and labor markets are thus &quot;of immense size because many [highly specialized] employers need a market of hundreds of thousands of potential workers to reach the ones they need. The Atlanta region of 26 counties is not a great economic engine because it is 26 charming adjacent hamlets, but rather because the market reach of employers, suppliers, customers and job seekers spreads over several million residents.&quot; </p>

November 16 - Michael Lewyn

FEATURE

Architect William A. Browne, Jr., FAIA, LEED AP, explains how he and his firm use narrative when designing buildings and spaces.

November 15 - William A. Browne Jr.

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">Virtually every modern economy is mixed: governments produce some goods and services and private companies produce others. Governments generally provide those goods and services that are either considered essential and should be available to everybody regardless of ability to pay, or that require strategic coordination, including police protection, basic education, transportation infrastructure, parks, and public health services.</span> <p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">Transportation facilities and services are among these basic government functions.

November 15 - Todd Litman

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-family: Tahoma"><span style="font-size: small">Back when Vancouver was first discussing the concept of laneway housing as part of the EcoDensity Initiative in 2006-2008, we nick-named it &quot;hidden density&quot; because it didn&#39;t significantly change the way single-detached housing blocks looked from the street. We did so, recognizing that the word hidden is a relative term.</span></span><span style="font-family: Tahoma"><span style="font-size: small"> </span></span> </p>

November 12 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

I've gathered some of the best here, properly field tested by my boys, to help you with your holiday shopping list.

November 12 - Chris Steins

FEATURE

November 11 - Keith Sugar

FEATURE

H.V. Savitch attempts to break down the attributes that make a city great, and concludes that a city need not score high in all the categories in order to achieve greatness.

November 8 - H.V. Savitch

BLOG POST

<p> We&#39;re doing a lot of fun, progressive stuff in Hoboken, NJ, and what we do here helps our industry push the envelope for the whole country.  But limited budgets and ever-critical politics make it incredibly difficult to keep the momentum on current and new projects with our limited staff.  Last year we created a new Department of Transportation and Parking, but we have been strapped from hiring on requisite professionals to manage all projects because, well, we don&#39;t have the money.  If you are a planning/engineering student seeking real-world experience to counterbalance academic theory, or if you are currently employed but looking for an outlet to independently exercise your creativity, I need your help in Hoboken, no matter where you live. </p>

November 2 - Ian Sacs

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: 6.5pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black">For some lucky candidates, tomorrow’s election will have a storybook ending. Unfortunately for anyone who understands architecture, planning, and land use, that storybook will, in many cases, turn out to be <em>The Fountainhead</em>.</span> <p style="background-image: none; background-attachment: scroll; background-color: white; background-position: 0% 0%; background-repeat: repeat repeat" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: 6.5pt; font-family: Verdana; color: black">The train wreck of ideologies that is emerging this election season is too much for anyone to categorize.

November 1 - Josh Stephens

FEATURE

In a field such as planning that is rich with quantifiable data, why there so little focus on evidence rather than opinion?, wonders researcher Martin Laplante.

November 1 - Martin Laplante

BLOG POST

<span><span style="font-size: small"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">Over the last six months some of my blog entries have highlighted plans and places. This month I turn to processes that are important in planning. This is a bit trickier than plans and places as the web presence of processes tends to be dominated by project examples and how-to instructions. It’s also hard from the web to get a sense of how processes have developed over time—for example what passes as rational comprehensive planning today, complete with numerous participatory processes and evaluation strategies, is quite different from the much criticized technical model of the 1950s and 1960s. Of course that’s a good reason to go to planning school.

October 31 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

<p> While critiquing one of my blog posts, Prof. Randall Crane asked: &quot;Is <em>any</em> parking regulation a net social burden or only 1.75 spaces per Jacksonville, Florida apartment?&quot; This question in turn is an example of a broader question: how do we resolve an issue when we don’t know, and perhaps have no way of knowing, the ideal empirical answer? </p> <p> Parking regulation presents a classic example: looking at environmental harm alone, it seems to me clear that minimum parking requirements create some environmental harm by on balance encouraging driving, but also reduce environmental harm from &quot;cruising&quot; (motorists wasting time and fuel searching for parking spaces).* </p>

October 26 - Michael Lewyn