Planning

Break out the Bunsen burner: Ric Stephens has broken down the science of city planning into this handy chart of elements.

May 6, 2010 - Ric Stephens

David Prowler, a former San Francisco planning commissioner, says that the public process of the city fails to engage the people of the community.

April 27, 2010 - SPUR Urbanist

Behold Magnasanti, the ultimate city built using the SimCity game with no cheats, with a population of 9 million residents.

April 16, 2010 - YouTube

Many thanks to Wired’s Jeff Howe who’s 2006 article “The Rise of Crowdsourcing” put an effective label at what the internet was doing to business.  Building from Web 2.0 applications focused on social media like Facebook and on-line communities, it’s become a popular and controversial term in tech circles.  For those not as familiar with the idea, let’s consult the most often used example of crowdsourcing – Wikipedia.   “Crowdsourcing is a distributed problem-solving and production model. Problems are broadcast to an unknown group of solvers in the form of an open call for solutions.

March 24, 2010 - Scott Page

St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial board formally endorses the removal of elevated and depressed lanes of current I-70 ROW to reconnect city and arch grounds.

March 3, 2010 - St. Louis Post Dispatch

As the housing market collapsed and gasoline prices spiked in 2007, many planners may have read Cornell University law professor Eduardo Penalver’s essay in the Washington Post with more than a little satisfaction.

March 2, 2010 - Samuel Staley

An interdisciplinary team of urban designers, architects, and analysts have proposed a neo-retro-futurist scenario for making downtown Portland nearly car-free by 2050.

January 18, 2010 - Hugeasscity

Downloading my newest addition to my Kindle library—the digital book service provided by Amazon.com—I remembered the gentle criticism of a planner on a list serve not too long ago. The thread was on sustainability and global warming. I had made the point that market economies were innovative economies, and too much of the planning discussion on sustainability focused on reduced consumption without seriously discussing the ways technology fundamentally changed our choice sets. The planner chastised me for my faith in markets, saying, in a nutshell, we need to focus on what we know we can influence and not hedge are bets on the past. The implication was that markets were too ephemeral and undependable to include in long-term planning.

January 4, 2010 - Samuel Staley

In Starksboro, Vermont, planners are using storytelling and community art projects to get at the heart of what matters to residents.

November 9, 2009 - Burlington Free Press

Growth is at a standstill in most western boomtowns, but not in well-planned, thriving South Jordan, UT. An expedited permitting process and good planning are given credit as catalysts for growth.

November 5, 2009 - Desert News

Photographer Alex MacLean talks about his book OVER: The American Landscape at the Tipping Point.

October 29, 2009 - Northwest Hub

Megan Lavalley may be the youngest planning commissioner ever, appointed to serve in Manchester, Vermont beginning Oct. 22nd.

October 14, 2009 - The Manchester Journal

The L.A. City Planning Commission president and architect, Bill Roschen, talks about how the commission is implementing clear and consistent policies toward their goal of "Doing Real Planning" in Los Angeles.

October 6, 2009 - The Planning Report

Two jobs in the Howard County Soil Conservation District were cut on Friday, leaving developers with plans in for review in the lurch. Officials are scrambling to find funding to get development rolling again.

August 31, 2009 - The Washington Post

I previously lamented the apparent death of industrial use in our cities by the widespread application of terms like “post-industrial” and “rust-belt.”  While semantics is an issue, let’s not forget that design matters and, in terms of industrial use, it hasn’t seemed to matter enough in recent years.     In times past, industrial use was often a form of pride.  Many of the hulking, multi-story industrial buildings in older cities are (still) beautiful additions to our cityscapes.  In some cities, those that went vacant have spawned a new form of urban scavenge hunting by those seeking to fuel their appreciation for our industrial past through photography and exploration.  Think as well of the WPA posters, many of which used stylized industrial themes to promote our “American” identity. 

July 16, 2009 - Scott Page

The future of Paris has been laid out by ten teams of architects and planners. The ideas are broad, futuristic, and innovative, but few are likely to be realized.

June 11, 2009 - The New York Times

Boulder's open space planners are calling for the intervention of different interest groups, including dog lovers, equestrians and hikers, to set rules for the city's most popular trails.

June 9, 2009 - Daily Camera

Ventura, CA, City Manager Rick Cole Op-ed argues for a comprehensive paradigm shift in the real estate and development industries.

April 5, 2009 - The Planning Report

Cincinnati City Council has approved $50,000 in funding for the development of neighborhood-based form-based codes. The funding is the first step of 'Smart Code' implementation throughout several Cincinnati neighborhoods.

February 8, 2009 - Building Cincinnati

Rats choose Manhattan because if its logical street grid, according to new research by a team of zoologists and geographers at Tel Aviv University, who are using rats to test wayfinding in cities.

January 16, 2009 - Science Daily