Planning
New York Regional Plan Association Advocates 'America 2050' Plan
According to RPA Executive Director Robert Yaro, global competition requires that the United States focus on regions for future infrastructure investment.
Green Buildings Need Green Cities
While cities are focused on promoting green 'buildings', planners and landscape architects need to advocate more green city planning.
When Professionals Plan Their Own Neighborhood
In Somerville, Massachusetts, a group of community residents -- many of them professional architects and planners -- have organized themselves to help the city address problems in their neighborhood.
Salt Lake City Takes Steps To Fix Dysfunctional Planning Department
After a recent audit revealed that long-time problems that have plagued the city's planning division, local leaders are taking action to remedy the situation.
City Hires Developer To Lead Planning Department
Winnipeg, Manitoba has selected a local developer to fill the city's top planning job, with some left wondering what direction the city's growth will take under the new director.
Questioning New York City's Sustinability Plan
With Mayor Bloomberg's congestion pricing plan defeated, can the city's vision for long-term sustainability be achieved?
Creating A New Vision For The Nation's Transportation System
With Americans driving less for the first time ever, its time to create a new comprehensive plan for transportation in the United States.
A Holistic Approach To Planning For Traffic Impacts
Instead of requiring developers to complete traffic studies for individual projects, one Northern California city has commissioned a comprehensive traffic study, and asked developers to help foot the bill.
Transplanting The Vancouver Model To The Middle East
The man largely responsible for planning modern day Vancouver has found his next challenge in the Middle Eastern capital of Abu Dhabi.
Can Los Angeles Plan Its Way To Mobility?
With a growing population, a sprawling urban landscape, and uncertain public funding, Los Angeles seems to be hoping for a miracle with its latest transportation planning effort.
DIY Urbanism
I think many planners, in principle, agree that public involvement and grass-roots approaches to planning are necessary. The emphasis on the sheer numbers of people a plan "includes" is only one recent example of our profession’s emphasis on public involvement. But I think deep down, many colleagues see a distinctive split between involving the public and empowering them to implement. Involving is necessary and important to get any plan endorsed. But once that plan is complete, the public (residents, business owners, local stakeholders) is many times not regarded as an implementation partner except perhaps in roles of advocacy.
Celebrate (Transportation) Diversity!
Every person is unique. Every day is unique. Every trip is unique. As a result, an efficient and equitable transportation system must be diverse, so people can choose the best option for each trip. For example, today you might prefer to walk or bicycle, but tomorrow find it best to use public transit or drive.
Why the Breakdown of Atlantic Yards is a Loss For New York Planning
New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff discusses why the impending breakdown of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn is a harsh blow to urban planning in New York.
Is Planning to Blame for Violence?
After a recent shooting death in Toronto, one writer lays the blame for urban violence on city planners.
Planning System Revamp May Speed Development in Santa Cruz
Bureaucratic red tape has slowed the development process for years in Santa Cruz, California. Now proposed changes look to speed up the process, but critics say the changes could open the door to under-controlled development.
Planners Making 'Inadequate' Use of Climate Change Info
New scientific reports laying out the potential impacts of global warming on cities are being directed to planners, whom some say are not reacting to the changing climate adequately.
When Planning Matters
Why plan? That’s an important question for a planning skeptic like myself. I’m not at all convinced that conventional public urban planning has much value, despite (or because of?) spending eight years on a city planning commission. Yet, I don’t consider myself an “antiplanner”. I’m happy to leave that role to my friend and virtual colleague Randal O’Toole at the Cato Institute. (He even runs a blog called “The Antiplanner”.) Urban planning has a role even though, IMO, on balance, its application has had a negative impact on communities and cities. Notably, even the free market (and Nobel Prize winning) economist F.A. Hayek recognized a role for planning in his classic book on political economy The Constitution of Liberty. The question is: what is planning’s role and, perhaps more importantly, how has this role changed or shifted in modern times?
A Practical Need for Utopianism
Who doesn’t love the Apocalypse? Society collapses, people run around in chaos, and we try to imitate the survival strategies culled from too many Hollywood end-of-the world blockbusters. Apocalyptic predictions have always been part of American culture, and why not?
The Bush Administration's 'War on Planning'
The decay of America's infrastructure and the Bush Administration's repeated excuse, "Nobody could have foreseen..." reveals how much of America's planning tradition has been lost to free market ideology, writes Sarah Robinson.
Planning Schools: To Rank, Or Not To Rank?
Professor Lance Freeman's recent post about Planetizen's rankings of graduate planning programs does an excellent job of summarizing some of the thorniest problems with school rankings. The editors of Planetizen certainly agree with Professor Freeman when he states that rankings cannot accurately predict whether a particular program will provide a particular student with the type of education he or she would deem best. There are far too many individual factors involved, and any student who makes their decision primarily on the basis of such rankings would be doing themselves a great disservice. This point is also the reason why most of the 142 pages of the 2007 Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs consist of detailed profiles of programs -- not rankings.However, we continue to believe, as Professor Freeman also acknowledges, that rankings do provide a useful measure of comparison for students who are evaluating a graduate program of study in planning -- something that is likely to be the largest single investment in their educational career. Therefore, we are planning to publish a new edition of the Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs in the spring. In addition, we're working to improve our rankings process to help address some the concerns that Professor Freeman and others have raised.
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.
Heyer Gruel & Associates PA
City of Moreno Valley
Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS)
City of Grandview
Harvard GSD Executive Education
Salt Lake City
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service
City of Cambridge, Maryland
