Downtown Futures

Planning Commissioners Journal

This past Summer, Planning Commissioners Journal Editor Wayne Senville met with more than a hundred planners, planning commissioners, local officials, and citizens in dozens of cities and towns from Maryland to California as he traveled Route 50.

"Crossing America," our Fall issue, covered the remarkable efforts of communities across the country to find local character and identity.

In our Winter issue, "Downtown Futures," Senville concludes his reports from across the U.S., exploring the efforts of cities and towns to strengthen their downtowns and main streets.

-- Read about the surprising impact that theater restorations can have in small city downtowns.
-- Find out how one small town learned how to help itself when economic changes threatened its very existence.
-- Hear how developing a riverwalk has brought new life to a Colorado downtown.
-- Learn why two outer-ring suburbs want to build mixed-use town centers.
-- See how one small city is promoting housing on its downtown main street.

Also in this issue: Often on the front lines of heated disputes between developers and residents, planning commissioners do best by keeping their cool and running orderly, even-handed meetings. Plus an update from Planetizen's editors on the top planning stories of 2007.

Use our PlannersWeb site to order and download (or have delivered by mail) our Fall & Winter issues with Senville's trip reports. Our web site and blog also feature a wide spectrum of informative, and sometimes offbeat, news and information. And you can read excerpts from more than 250 articles published in the Planning Commissioners Journal -- almost all of these articles are available to order and immediately download.