Music

Great Album Covers with Urban Planning Themes
Album covers that evoke urban themes.

Songs About Places in the Time of Coronavirus
The latest edition of Planetizen's annual list of songs about places, for all the audiophiles with a passion for place.

How Urban Form Created Classic Rock
A great many factors converged to create the culture and music of the 1960s. A powerful, but often overlooked, factor was the Los Angeles neighborhood of Laurel Canyon. A new documentary provides a case study in urban creativity.

Independent Music Venues Face a Tough Road Ahead
Where have all the venues gone?

Songs About Places 2019
Songs about dystopia and catastrophe are impossible to avoid this year, but "Old Town Road" could be the path to redemption. Managing Editor James Brasuell assembled a Spotify playlist on songs about places from 2019.

Songs About Places - 2018
The 2018 edition of an annual playlist of songs about places by critically acclaimed and popular bands.

2017's Best Songs About Places
Our favorite genre of music is the one that celebrates places.

Safe for Now, Brooklyn Music Mecca Sees a Cloudy Future
More than 20 percent of New York's smaller music venues have closed in the past 15 years. Although Brooklyn institution Barbes was recently saved by a crowdfunding campaign, its founder is pessimistic about the future of New York's independent arts.

U2 Concert Costs Transit Agency $61K
The Bay Area agency had to extend service into the night hours when the show ran overtime.
From Caracas to Remote Villages, One Family's Search for Venezuela
Like his father and great-uncle before him, 37-year-old Caracas native Guillermo Lares is using Venezuela's rural traditions to help himself and his contemporaries reflect on the country's current reality.

Explosive Subculture: Cities and the Punk Movement
From London to Los Angeles, the punk movement was always an urban phenomenon. But punks needed to fight hard for a place in the cities they called home.

An Ordinance to Curb Street Performance in Chicago Draws Criticism
Chicago Aldermen are considering an ordinance to outlaw street performances audible from more than 20 feet away, but in a segregated city, some fear that a quieter downtown might be more unwelcoming.

Unique 'Audio Portraits' Pay Homage to Urban Noise
One man's noise pollution is another man's symphony.

Chicago Could Lose the Blues
An editorial in Crain's suggests that by not taking full advantage of its history with the Blues, Chicago is wasting a precious cultural resource and missing an opportunity for tourism dollars.

Friday Fun: Wynton Marsalis on the 'Mythic Significance' of Trains
Famed musician Wynton Marsalis recently spoke with Transportation Secretary Anthony Foxx about the connections between music and transportation.

'The Well-Tempered City': An Epic Book, and Why
In a review of Jonathan F.P. Rose's new book, 'The Well-Tempered City,' Chuck Wolfe enthusiastically endorses Rose's refreshing world view.

Poor Urban Planning and the Birth of Hip Hop
An architect known as the Hip-Hop Architect explains how the planning decisions of the 20th century served as muse and breeding ground for the multi-million-dollar industry of hip hop.

A Year's Worth of Music About Places
Musicians from all varieties of musical genres spent the past year pondering, celebrating, and complicating our perception of places.

Street Performers: Nuisance or Necessity?
With its eclectic music scene, Asheville, North Carolina is a popular spot for street musicians. They can bring a vibrancy the town might suffer without. But some residents fear a rise in panhandling and homelessness.

2014 in Review—Music About Places
A list of personal favorites—music that expressed more than research or rhetoric can about the places where we live, work, and play.
Pagination
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.
City of Albany
UCLA Lewis Center for Regional Policy Studies
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Chaddick Institute at DePaul University
City of Piedmont, CA
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research