Public Investment

Chicago Planning Commissioner Focuses on Disinvested Neighborhoods
A new initiative seeks to bring investment dollars to Chicago communities that for decades have suffered from the loss of wealth and population.

Does Oakland Have a Future as a Public City?
The city is experiencing significant growth and development, but it has a complicated history of booms and lags and its civic future is uncertain.

Hudson Yards Will Redefine Manhattan
The size and scale of Hudson Yards in the skyline of Manhattan will match the size and scale of public and private investment in the project. The project's effect in the city's economy will be just as conspicuous.
Report Reveals Imbalanced Investments for Atlanta's BeltLine
While the neighborhoods on northern segments of the Atlanta's BeltLine has received 94 percent of funding invested towards parks and trails, segments to the south have received 86 percent of affordable housing investments.

The High Line as Symbol of 'Severe Economic Inequality'
A recent article in Salon cites the High Line as perhaps the most conspicuous example of how municipal governments are subsidizing wealthy corporate or private interests while many citizens continue to suffer low wages and benefits.
Bike Sharing Becomes Part of Transportation Picture
Erik Weber of non-profit EMBARQ argues that bike sharing systems combine the benefits of cycling and public transit and is a sustainable solution for cities.
Raise My Taxes, Please! Financing High Quality Public Transit Service Saves Me Money Overall
Most North American cities offer only basic public transit service, with limited coverage and frequency, modest speeds, unattractive waiting areas, poor land use integration, and few amenities. Such service is used primarily by people who lack alternatives. In such communities, riders tend to abandon public transit as soon as feasible.
A Cost-Benefit Analysis for High Speed Rail
In the first of a series of posts to the NYTimes' Economix Blog, Edward Glaeser explores the value of high-speed rail in the US.
London's Big Stadium Gamble
The Olympics can be awesome for cities. Or they can be devastating. Rarely they're both, and most often they are an economic drain caused by over-investment in facilities with limited long-term usability. So when London's plans for a 2012 Summer Olympics stadium that would reduce from 80,000 seats during the games to a more realistically usable 25,000 seats after, Olympics experts, city officials and taxpayers rejoiced. But recent news has turned that rejoice to disgust.
Economic Benefits In Question in New York Stadium Redevelopments
Stadium construction in New York that was intended to have only a small cost to taxpayers has turned out to be a major investment and allocation of tax breaks, causing many to question whether the economic benefits of rebuilding will ever be seen.
Stadium Development Could Hurt More Than Help
New data on stadium development show that economic benefits fall way short of public investment.
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