The Daily Source of Urban Planning News
DC Planning Office Seeks To Restrict Georgetown Enrollment
Washington DC's office of planning will begin restricting Georgetown's enrollment if the university does not manage to provide housing for 100% of its undergraduates by 2016.
Despair and Hope in Occupied Rust Belt Cities
As part of an "Occupy America" tour, Arun Gupta visits Occupy protests in three rust belt cities, and finds that the economic forces that unleashed the global recession long ago stripped these cities of their economic and social fabric.
Executives Told To "Pack Suitcases" For Libyan Infrastructure Boom
Tripoli Airport and Misrata hospital are the first specific projects to be named, as western governments begin to release frozen assets to the National Transition Government (NTI) and international corporations spot an opportunity.
The Mysterious Disappearing Transit
After nine years of public outreach and study, transit was abruptly and secretively dropped from plans for the new Tappan Zee Bridge. Now, neither New York Governor Andrew Cuomo nor the US Department of Transportation will say why.
Cities Aren't About Happiness
Elizabeth Farrelly suggests that happiness is only a possible side benefit to the true goal of cities, which is "...getting stuff done and, more importantly, generating the ideas that get stuff done."
How to Build a Better Park
New Urbanist Peter Katz presents his guidelines for creating a popular urban park. First published in 1995, Katz's ideas still hold up.
BLOG POST
Retired Faculty: Keeping Up With Them Via Blogs
<p class="MsoNormal"> With the proliferation of new media planning practitioners have new ways to find out about the continuing work of planning faculty members who have retired. Not all of them blog of course, but the list below demonstrates some of the variety of these efforts. </p>
BLOG POST
Taming wide streets
<p> Before moving to New York, I'd viewed street design through a fairly simple lens: narrow streets good, wide streets bad. By and large, I still hold this view. But after living here for a few months, I have learned that not all wide streets are equally bad. The wide roads of the South are generally terrible, but New York has made some of its wide streets a bit more pedestrian-friendly. To see why, go to <a href="http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/learn/using-street-view.html">Google Street View</a> and examine three addresses: 5019 U.S. 23 in Chamblee, Georgia, 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn's Crown Heights neighborhood, and 107-43 Queens Boulevard in my current Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills. </p>
The Growing Food Truck Industrial Complex
The food truck phenomenon is here to stay and stimulating tangential industries that include truck outfitters, permit expediters, lawyers lobbyists, website designers, and marketing professionals.
Jan Gehl on the Past 40 Years of Urbanism
Famed urbanist Jan Gehl looks back at the writing and thought on how people use the urban environment -- including his own -- over the past 40 years.
Preparing for "Peak Car"
Shifting demographics combined with changes in lifestyle preferences and growing frustration at the limitations of auto-oriented living is leading to a shift away from car use and ownership, some experts say.
Homelessness and the Occupy Wall Street Movement
The logistics involved in maintaining the Occupy Wall Street protests turn out to be some of the very activities that homeless people have been banned from doing in most cities for years.
Diesel Cars and Trucks Will Flood U.S. Market in 2014
Eric Loveday of AutoBlogGreen explains why we'll be seeing a lot more diesels in the U.S.: increased federal emission standards will only be met by increasing the number of diesel cars on the market.
Talking Placemaking with Fred Kent
Michelle Bruch talks with placemaking expert Fred Kent about the makeover he helped orchestrate of Detroit's Campus Martius Park.
Touring the Suburban Environment
Jason Griffiths and Alex Gino set out in 2002 to document the unremarkable character of the American suburbs. 22,382 miles and 2,593 photographs later, they concluded that suburbia "is difficult to define."
No Excuses For Not Charging For Parking
Transportation consultant Jeff Tumlin admits that it's no easy job to convince people (let alone political leaders) that it's in their best interest, and that of their community, that parking should not be free. New technology may be the ticket.
Increasingly, Infrastructure Offloaded to Private Sector
Unable to pay for transportation infrastructure and unlikely to get help at the federal level, cities and states are looking to private entities to build and invest in their infrastructure projects.
The Second Coming of Marked-Down Detroit
The 2010 Census reveals that Detroit's population is approaching the 1910's level. Of the City's 714,000 residents, 83% are black and nearly 40% live in poverty. With virtually every statistic going against its favor, can Motown make a comeback?
Prefab, 10' by 10' Affordable Homes
Stación-ARquitectura Arquitectos has designed a modular home to house poor families in Monterrey, Mexico.
Diverse, But Not Integrated
New York City may be diverse, but it is also one of the most segregated places in the country, and a rash of recent events involving civic employees reflects this. Until this is remedied, New Yorkers "won't have as much to brag about as we think."
Ada County Highway District
Clanton & Associates, Inc.
Jessamine County Fiscal Court
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Toledo-Lucas County Plan Commissions
Salt Lake City
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
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.
