Exclusives

BLOG POST

<p>Scrambling to grab that elusive “American Dream” of homeownership, millions plunged into the subprime mortgage market to build wealth through appreciation (if not speculation). Pundits cheered as the ownership rate crept up, lauding the pluck of aspirational minority and immigrant families.</p><p>There’s a reason it is called subprime, though. Lenders offered a smorgasborg of loan “products,” but the bottom line was that they are all very costly for the borrower – often entailing adjustable-rate surprises in the 30 percent or higher range.</p>

March 5 - James S. Russell

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">The merit of rent regulation is a recurring debate in New York City.<span> </span>On one side are tenant advocates arguing that rent regulation is desperately needed to help poorer households, maintain socioeconomic diversity in New York City, and prevent the City from becoming the preserve of the super rich.<span> </span>Real estate interests on the other hand argue that rent regulation deprives property owners of the right to market their apartments as they see fit, causes landlords to under-invest in their properties, and that in many instances the beneficiaries of rent regulation are affluent.<span> </span>What makes the debate so bedeviling and contentious is that both sides are correct.</p>

March 5 - Lance Freeman

BLOG POST

<p> The planned expansion of Interstate-5 in San Diego County would finally complete the Southern California metropolis. Los Angeles and Orange Counties became wall-to-wall sprawl development decades ago, erasing all traces of their rural heritage and the scenic outdoors. Northern San Diego County, with its quaint beach towns, is tenuously holding on to the last vestiges of agricultural land and breathable open space. But these areas too are rapidly developing. It is no surprise then that I-5, the only north-south route along the coast, is increasingly traffic clogged. The county’s solution? Invest $1.4 billion to expand the freeway from 8 lanes to 12 or 14 lanes along a 26-mile stretch of the north county coast.</p>

March 3 - Diana DeRubertis

BLOG POST

<p><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS'"><font size="2">For as often as the Gulf Coast and 9/11 debacles and their aftermaths have been analyzed, one discussion has been conspicuously missing: how starkly those events, natural and man-made, revealed the inability of planning today--however professionally designed, organized and regulated—to contend with the vagaries of circumstances and conditions out of its control.

March 3 - Roger Sherman

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">What is this thing we do called planning? Are we really planning or just reacting? And visioning? What’s that all about? These the questions that came to mind as I was reading yesterday’s - <em><a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/23076"><span style="color: windowtext; text-decoration: none">Ineffective Local Planning Efforts Push County To Seek Greater Control</span></a></em></font></font><span style="font-size: 11pt; color: black; font-family: Verdana">. </span><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">And, also, how many articles like this are published on a daily basis?? If you were to add them all up from across the country, I’m sure the number wouldn’t be insignificant. </font></p>

March 2 - David Renkert

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">The impact of the urban grocery store gap, particularly on low-income communities, has been well documented. The presence of full-service grocery store can raise the economic value of surrounding property, serve as an anchor in commercial districts, provide an important source of jobs, and lower the daily cost of living for residents.<span> </span>In an era of skyrocketing obesity rates, public health research shows a strong correlation between the presence of a grocery store and the consumption of fruits and vegetables.<span> </span></p>

February 28 - Lisa Feldstein

BLOG POST

<p>At Project for Public Spaces, Inc. we think successful public spaces are the key to the future of cities. By “successful spaces” we mean spaces that are used, but what we find more often than not, in the centers of cities, are some very bad spaces – meaning that they are pretty much devoid of opportunities to do anything – even though they look good. We have also found that the least successful spaces and buildings are often the newest ones.</p>

February 27 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

<p>New Orleans is experiencing a crime wave. High murder rates in the first two months of 2007 have made national attention. Anderson Cooper of CNN has been following this story. So far this year he has devoted two hour-long shows to this topic. I live in central New Orleans and my biggest complaint about the city is the high crime rate. I don’t think our city will recover if we fail to address this most serious issue. Crime makes you ask yourself – should I move to the suburbs where it’s safer and commute? But being a transportation planner, I can’t help but follow-up that question with – If I spend a lot more time driving will my exposure to dieing in a car accident increase? So which is worse - murder or traffic fatalities?</p>

February 27 - John Renne

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">Thousands of New Orleanians have participated in planning their post-Katrina future – likely more than in any single American city-planning effort, ever. Unfortunately, the New Orleans experience definitively demonstrates the limits of orthodox community-focused planning, the kind that has been neighborhood-based and consensus-driven.</p>

February 27 - James S. Russell

BLOG POST

<p>Thanks to Planetizen for asking me to participate in “Planetizen Interchange” with such a distinguished group. This is my first entry so to let you know a bit about me, I live in New Orleans, LA. I was displaced for 10 months to Houston, TX after Katrina destroyed my house, but I am back in New Orleans where I am a planning, zoning and land use consultant.

February 26 - Anonymous

FEATURE

With the Latino population growing tremendously, it's time to begin addressing the shortcomings in the practice of planning regarding this key demographic.

February 26 - Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP

BLOG POST

<p>In spring 2007, the Texas Transportation Institute and its partners will release the newest version of the &quot;Mobility Report.&quot; This eagerly-awaited document will chronicle the worsening congestion in urban and suburban America. The report typically spawns a frenzy of media stories as folks eagerly peruse the ranking lists finding out just how their area did. While methodology tweaks and data issues might add a few wrinkles, no one will be surprised to see congestion worse than the prior report two years ago. Surprise, surprise!

February 25 - Steven Polzin

BLOG POST

It has been a few years since my last trip to Europe, so perhaps I have selective memory. But I don’t recall having to compete with hundreds of cars or choke down exhaust while exploring the streets of London. I remember navigating through seas of people that filled the city’s squares, alleyways and boulevards.

February 24 - Diana DeRubertis

BLOG POST

<p>For those admitted to graduate planning programs in the U.S., March is the season of choices and decisions. Offers appear. Decision deadlines approach. Wait lists are formed. Even those who thought they knew what they wanted may be tempted to change their minds. Having been affiliated with seven vastly different planning programs, and having worked both as a faculty member and practitioner, I can attest that the choices aren’t simple. </p>

February 24 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

<p>Reading news stories about planning is crucially important to the worth of planners, developers, public officials, policy makers, and anyone else who cares about the way communities form and evolve. By knowing what&#39;s going on in other places, those concerned with cities and their development will be better informed to analyze and approach the planning issues facing their own communities.

February 24 - Nate Berg

BLOG POST

<p>Hi - I&#39;m excited about the start of this blog! I am the co-founder and editor-in-chief of <a href="http://www.americancity.org" target="_blank">The Next American City</a>, where we promote socially and environmentally sustainable economic growth for American cities and suburbs in our magazine, events, and op-eds. Looking forward to the conversations over the coming months and years on this site, and I&#39;m always open to ideas for what I should discuss here, or what our team at TNAC, including our President Seth Brown, Publisher Michelle Kuly, Editor Jess McCuan, and everyone else that makes TNAC happen, should cover. </p><p>The national media is obsessed with the story of central cities coming back. Let&#39;s put aside whether this story is real or not (one on hand, I could show you similar clippings from any of the last five decades and suburban growth rates are still much higher; on the other hand, there does seem to be a slight resurgence in many cities lately that goes beyond what we&#39;ve seen in the past). My question - from a planning standpoint - is - who cares?<br />

February 23 - Anonymous

BLOG POST

<p>About two years ago, after teaching a course at NYU&#39;s Interactive Telecommunications Program on &quot;Digitally Mediated Urban Space&quot;, I wrote an article for the architectural design journal Praxis that sought to do do two things: 1) make sense of the wide array of digital technologies that are being deployed in urban space, and 2) present a couple of places that I thought exemplified good and bad &quot;design&quot; of digital public spaces. </p><p>Recently, my research on context-aware computing - computing based on sensors and artificial intelligence - has led me to revisit this piece. Around the same time, I got a call from Lucas Graves, a friend who writes for Wired, and was doing a piece on technologies that are &quot;perpetually around the corner&quot;. Lucas was mainly interested in things like videophones, but it coincided with a turn in my research to the applications side of context-awareness: smart cities, smart places, smart homes, and smart objects. As an urban planner, I immediately gravitated to thinking about smart cities and smart places, but wondered in the back of my mind - is this something that is really happening, or just another one of those technologies that are perpetually around the corner?<br />

February 23 - Anthony Townsend

BLOG POST

<p>As a note of introduction, I am a Master&#39;s student in Community Planning at the University of Maryland. I&#39;m happy to be part of this exciting project. </p><p><img src="/files/u10085/271989110_fe17db8a63_m.jpg" alt="MLK Memorial Library, Washington, D.C." title="MLK Memorial Library, Washington, D.C." hspace="5" vspace="5" width="240" height="189" align="right" />With a series of new urban libraries opening in U.S. cities recent years, its been said we&#39;re living through an &#39;urban library renaissance.&#39; Whether it is the <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/13300">enthusiastic reception</a> of the new Seattle library, or lending and attendance <a href="http://www.planetizen.com/node/22494">up in urban Canadian libraries</a>, there seems to be an increased awareness of the critical role libraries play, even in the information age.</p><p>However, no such renaissance has happened here in Washington, D.C. -- at least not yet. Here the former mayor&#39;s plans to build a new library were stalled by what the Washington Post has termed the &#39;<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/15/AR2006061501802.html">Mies Mystique</a>.&#39;</p><p>

February 22 - Robert Goodspeed

BLOG POST

<p>This is my first blog post on this network and I&#39;m happy to be here. For 1.5 years, I&#39;ve been blogging by myself at greeneconomics.blogspot.com and this is the first time that I&#39;ve been a &quot;team&quot; player. I&#39;m hoping that debates and discussions on important policy issues take place here and I&#39;ll try to do my part to not be boring!

February 21 - Matthew E. Kahn

BLOG POST

<p>A long time ago in a previous design office, I made the mistake of engaging a light rail fanatic in a debate about whether Peachtree Street in Atlanta should be adorned with a light rail line. The debate turned into a protracted email diatribe about the pros and cons of light rail and whether this specific idea made any sense.

February 21 - Scott Page