North America

Happiness and health are generated or depleted by the way our neighbourhoods, towns, cities, and rural landscapes are developed. Creative placemaking adds to walkable urbanism by sealing the deal on physical, mental, and social well-being.

November 17, 2012 - PlaceShakers

Angie Schmitt takes issue with the controversial premise of a recent story from the popular Freakonomics guys. True to their reputation for counter-intuition, their most recent report makes the claim that "driving is greener than transit."

November 16, 2012 - DC.Streetsblog

Scott Bernstein joins in the Happiness Index conversation, starting with references to the Anatomy of Melancholy.

November 15, 2012 - PlaceShakers

Jarrett Walker examines the desirability of slow transit as argued by University of British Columbia Professor Patrick M. Condon in support of a vast streetcar network for Vancouver.

November 11, 2012 - Human Transit

Howard Blackson walks through the planning layers of San Diego for a history lesson as well as a look to the Next Urbanism.

November 11, 2012 - PlaceShakers

Increasing mileage standards will do little to measurably reduce greenhouse gas emissions. In order to seriously tackle climate change we need to ditch the cars, and the development patterns they encourage, and move to walkable places.

November 6, 2012 - Salon

As the Sandy clean-up gets underway, could this be an opportunity for the Eastern Seaboard to apply some of the rebuilding lessons learned along the Gulf Coast after Katrina? Ben Brown shares some pointers.

November 6, 2012 - PlaceShakers

What do we lose when we narrowly associate planning with an 'urban' or 'city' context? The ability to effectively plan for rural, transitional, regional, and even urban areas, says Ruth Miller.

November 1, 2012 - Colab Radio

Surging oil and natural gas production has transformed the domestic energy paradigm. With the U.S. on track to replace Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer, will the U.S finally meet President Nixon's 1973 goal of 'energy independence'?

October 28, 2012 - NPR Morning Edition

For communities or leaders reticent to buy into bold change, "selling change by the slice" through pilot projects can be a great way to get stakeholders on board with a larger vision. Otis White discusses two key components of pilot project success.

October 25, 2012 - Otis White Blog

By a ratio of two-to-one, Toronto is far outpacing NYC in terms of high-rises and skyscrapers currently under construction. As other Canadian cities follow suit, Jim Flaherty, Canada's Finance Minister, is taking measures to cool the market.

October 24, 2012 - The Globe and Mail

For Howard Blackson, the latest trend in planning and design is redevelopment based on evolving, rather than phased, implementation. In this blog post he identifies the three typologies of this "slow urbanism."

October 22, 2012 - Better! Cities & Towns

Dillon Fenner looks at early Superman comics and finds him to be not only less-than heroic, but a planner's nightmare: wiping out slums because he assumes the government will rebuild them, and declaring war on the car [language warning].

October 19, 2012 - CRACKED

The Clean Water Act turns 40 this week. For Mark Gold, this calls for a celebratory overview of the many environmental successes it has produced, as well as careful consideration of the steps needed for it to be effective in years to come.

October 19, 2012 - Los Angeles Times

Alex Steffen, a "leading voice in planetary futurism," muses on what he believes could be a way to move beyond NIMBYism and incremental urban planning, to provide an antidote to fundamentally broken city governance.

October 2, 2012 - Planetary Thinking

As the level of sophistication in cycling infrastructure increases, the value of networks becomes even more apparent.

October 1, 2012 - PlaceShakers

News out last week that big-box retailer Staples plans to reduce its square footage by 15 percent heralds a larger trend of smaller screens necessitating smaller boxes. Lydia DePillis examines why this will be a boon to cities.

October 1, 2012 - The New Republic

Tax breaks, cheap energy, and investments in infrastructure are among the subsidies often requested of local communities by companies searching for locations for their operations. Edward Alden asks what companies owe in return.

September 27, 2012 - Renewing America

Caela J. McKeever traces the ways in which the gap between the passion of architecture school and the stark realities of professional practice are discouraging young architects.

September 26, 2012 - Crosscut

In his column Urban Nation, Harry Moroz argues for deeper involvement from the federal government in urban policy in order to give American cities the fighting chance they deserve to be healthy and enjoyable places to live.

September 19, 2012 - Next American City