Exclusives

FEATURE

Making Sense of Neighborhood Structure

Planner Sam Gennawey details a public participation exercise he regularly uses, taken from the ideas of Christopher Alexander, that makes complex ideas simple for public understanding.

August 16 - Sam Gennawey

BLOG POST

How To Raise Fares

A couple of weeks ago, I was on a bus in Chicago and noticed something that I had not noticed before- that how you paid to get on the bus affected how long you took to get on the bus. People who flashed monthly passes boarded in a few seconds. People who put in dollar bills got on a lot more slowly, as they fumbled for the right number of bills. People who had to pay change took longer still. So to speed buses’ on-time performance (pun intended) transit agencies should encourage the former and discourage the latter.

August 13 - Michael Lewyn

FEATURE

Beyond the Priesthood

In 1995, author and planning authority Peter Katz wrote an article scolding planners for being "planners who talk" rather than "planners who draw". The original article generated much controversy, and appears here with a postscript added by Katz that reveals a glimmer of hope for the planning profession in the U.S.

August 12 - Peter Katz

BLOG POST

Internalizing the Externalized: The Case of Roads

In a <a href="/node/44927">previous blog post</a>, my discussion of externalities, public goods and roads spurred an unexpectedly lengthy set of posts and repostes. In this article, I want to address a trickier topic: Whether road users have effectively shifted the burden for paying for roads to non-users and whether the reason we pay for roads out of general taxes is a result of that lobbying effort.

August 9 - Samuel Staley

FEATURE

Supermodel Sirens on "Sanctuary" Island

Is there an ideal model for a city's circulation, a "supermodel"? Fanis Grammenos reviews a new paper that proposes the use of organic forms first recognized by Christopher Alexander.

August 9 - Fanis Grammenos

BLOG POST

Can "Webinars" Make Planning Workshops Obsolete?

Can planners effectively use on-line meeting technology to host public participation workshops? The City of Los Angeles' Department of City Planning recently decided to find out for itself by experimenting with a "webinar" format for two kickoff workshops highlighting the City's 2010 draft citywide Bicycle Plan. A webinar is a web conference, where participants can access a virtual meeting using a computer and Internet connection. Participants access a website to see the presente's computer screen and also listen to the presenter through the computer's speakers or using a telephone.

August 6 - Ken Bernstein

BLOG POST

Value-Based Land Planning

A few years back, I was involved with helping a land owner master plan a 30-acre parcel in Las Vegas just off the Strip, near the MGM Grand Hotel. The parcel was zoned for casino uses and also had potential for hotel, residential towers and other retail uses. The land owner paid about $9 million for the underutilized and nearly vacant property and received minor residual income for lower intensity uses that were currently operating on the site. Initially, the land owner tried to flip the land using a prestigious national real estate brokerage that marketed the property with a glossy aerial photograph, a large red b

August 5 - Rick Abelson

BLOG POST

A Planning Parable, Circa 1984

Burning rainforests. Smog alerts. Gridlocked cities. Seabirds caked with oil. That's how it was, ladies and gentlemen, as we entered the '90s. This list of environmental peril is familiar still today, although we can cite some success fighting the smog. In this case, the quote is from a TV reporter in 1984, a character in a Ray Bradbury story called "The Toynbee Convector."

August 4 - Tim Halbur

BLOG POST

Planning After Our "Empire of Food"

Recently, a Briton armed with a metal detector uncovered a trove of more than 50,000 Roman coins, which archeologists believe was an ancient farming community's offering to the gods to ensure a bountiful harvest. Our own agricultural practices have moved past any pleas to the gods to incorporate instead an industrial-scale arsenal of petrochemical fertilizers, pesticides and genetic modification.

August 3 - Michael Dudley

FEATURE

Benefits and Burdens in Post-World Cup South Africa

The 2010 World Cup has ended in South Africa. What's left behind are a number of physical and cultural legacies that will be both landmark developments and potential economic hazards.

August 2 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

More evidence that walkability is marketable

A few days ago, I was in a Chicago neighborhood called Lincoln Square, on Lincoln Avenue just south of Lawrence Avenue. Lincoln Avenue looks like many posh urban neighborhoods- narrow, walkable streets inhabited by gelato-eating, prosperous-looking people. Even on a weeknight, the shops and streets of Lincoln Square betrayed no evidence of a recession.*

July 29 - Michael Lewyn

BLOG POST

Canadian Urbanists weigh in on Census Controversy

Canadian city planners and urbanists have been active in the discussion and debate over the last few weeks, regarding the Federal government's decision to change the mandatory long form census to a voluntary approach. As un-sexy as the census might seem to many (I myself never thought I'd be writing a post about the census), the national media has been all over this, giving extensive coverage to the numerous experts and professional organizations who have been unanimously critical of this move, and the effects it will have on the planning and management of cities and communities.

July 29 - Brent Toderian

FEATURE

San Juan to Ban Cars, Make "Walkable City"

The oldest city in the Americas bans cars from its colonial streets and outlines a plan to make San Juan more livable. David Soto gives us a look at this ambitious plan.

July 26 - David Soto

BLOG POST

Reflexive Congestion Self-Management?

<span style="word-spacing: 0px; font: medium 'Times New Roman'; text-transform: none; color: #000000; text-indent: 0px; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; border-collapse: separate; orphans: 2; widows: 2; webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px" class="Apple-style-span">I frequently drive to an uncle’s house near the beach via the Garden State Parkway in New Jersey. For years, that drive required a very late Friday evening departure and a similarly late Sunday evening return trip to avoid the wicked stop-and-go that always mires t

July 26 - Ian Sacs

BLOG POST

The Busiest Street In Town

Few children’s books skillfully cover the subject of urban planning. Chicago's <a href="/node/29243">Wacker Manual for the Plan of Chicago</a> (1911), David Macaulay’s lavishly illustrated City:A Story of Roman Planning and Construction (1974), and most recently, Planetizen's <a href="/kidsbook">Where Things Are, From Near to Far</a> (2008) are standouts.

July 25 - Mike Lydon

BLOG POST

Planning History: A Few of the City and Metropolitan Plans You Should Know

<span style="widows: 2; text-transform: none; text-indent: 0px; border-collapse: separate; font: normal normal normal medium/normal 'Times New Roman'; white-space: normal; orphans: 2; letter-spacing: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; color: #000000" class="Apple-style-span">Last month I highlighted some important <a href="/node/44923" target="_blank">places</a> in the history of planning. Responding to student requests, this month I turn to plans.

July 22 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

LA Planning Department's First Public Participation Webinar

The City of Los Angeles <a href="http://planning.lacity.org/">Department of Planning</a> and <a href="http://www.ladottransit.com/">Department of Transportation</a> held a first-ever public online participation webinar Thursday, July 20, 2010. The city used the opportunity to experiment with web conferencing technology, and will survey participants after the event to evaluate the success of the experiment. A webinar is a web conference, where participants can access a virtual meeting using a computer, and Internet connection. Participants access a website to see the presenter's computer screen, and also listen to the presenter through the computer's speakers, or using a telephone.

July 20 - Chris Steins

FEATURE

False Friendliness: Photoshopped People in Public Spaces

Proposals for new projects arrive on city desks everyday showing vibrant public plazas full of people. But too often those spaces fail to attract people in the way they were portrayed. Are Photoshopped people a deliberate falsehood?

July 19 - Tim Halbur

BLOG POST

Are You For/Against Closing Street Segments?

<div>There's a lot of babbling on in this blog about how streets are public space, that they are for people, and that they should be designed equitably for everyone.

July 13 - Ian Sacs

BLOG POST

And The Winner Is…

Spanish football fans are celebrating in the streets, while in The Netherlands they are drowning their sorrows, but the real winners of the 2010 World Cup are the people of South Africa. Long after the last vuvuzela is sounded, residents and visitors will enjoy the legacy of new <a href="http://www.arrivealive.co.za/pages.aspx?i=2874">Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)</a> systems build in South Africa’s four major cities.

July 12 - Todd Litman