Yule Heibel's Library tagged planning →  View Popular, Search in Google

Introduction to Jarrett Walker's book, Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives. Excellent points. Eg.:
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Transit debates also suffer from the fact that today, in most of our cities, most of our decision makers are motorists. No matter how much you support transit, driving a car every day can shape your thinking in powerful subconscious ways. For example, in most debates about proposed rapid transit lines, the speed of the proposed service gets more political attention than how frequently it runs, even though frequency, which determines waiting time, often matters more than vehicle speed in determining the total time a transit trip will require. Your commuter train system will advertise that it can whisk you into the city in thirty-nine minutes, but if the train comes only once every two hours and you’ve just missed one, your travel time will be two hours and thirty-nine minutes, so it may be faster to drive or even walk.
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human_transit jarrett_walker transportation planning portland

It had to happen, of course...
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So it is with particular angst that many of these same planners [who learned from Jane Jacobs that they need to listen to the people] now are forced to reckon with the modern-day Jane Jacobs, at least in terms of tactics and a libertarian streak: the Tea Party.

Across the country, Tea Party activists have been storming planning meetings of all kinds, opposing various plans by local and regional government having anything to do with density, smart growth, sustainability or urbanism.
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What’s driving the rebellion is a view that government should have no role in planning or shaping the built environment that in any way interferes with private property rights.
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jjacobs tea_party grassroots planning density smartgrowth atlantic_cities

The comments on this article are excellent (critical). Have to agree with the ones that criticize central planning. If zone 1 and 3 were connected directly (skipping zone 2), I bet it would be the same story as with building more and bigger roads...
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The researchers' algorithms indicate when the network of roads and subway lines between two regions cannot support the number of people traveling between those regions. By pointing out underlying problems, the system shows urban planners where to focus their attention, Zheng says.

In some cases, Zheng says, the busy regions aren't really the ones that are flawed. For example, it may be that people from region 1 are going through region 2 on their way to region 3, in which case it may be better to connect region 1 and 3 directly, rather than trying to widen highways in region 2.
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planning urban_planning traffic congestion mit_techreview

Right on. Excellent critique.
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While Campanella says that we need a muscular government to accomplish such great things, he for the most part blames a citizenry that no longer shares values about the public realm that are necessary to support a bold course of government action. He attributes this to a sense of self-interest that he finds rooted in the various "cultural revolutions" that started with the civil rights movement.

It seems bizarre, at least to this reader, to blame America's failure to maintain and modernize its transportation systems, its schools, and every other aspect of the public realm (with the exception of sports stadiums!) on the social and cultural gains of minorities, women, gays, etc., when a much more obvious explanation is the fact that for 40 years America's economy and fiscal decisions have largely been in the hands of the intellectual, economic, political, and actual descendents of those who fought tooth and nail the New Deal that Campanella appropriately admires.
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From communityplanning.net, their book, "The Community Planning Event Manual: How to Use Collaborative Planning," is available on Google books.

planning community public_engagement howto

Portal page for communityplanning.net, a UK-based organization. Most of this is familiar, but great to have formalized on one site.

planning community howto public_engagement

This is a great move:
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"The ordinance will allow code exemptions for up to 12 buildings seeking certification through the Living Building Challenge (LBC). The exemptions will allow the buildings to meet LBC prerequisites that require techniques, such as onsite water treatment, that conflict with current land-use and building codes in Seattle (as well as in many other areas of the U.S.). City officials will use the review process to inform future code changes that could make the regulatory landscape friendlier to onsite water and energy strategies. "
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seattle planning regulation green_buildings living_buildings

"The main question architects should ask themselves is how new media technologies alter the social processes behind spatial interventions?"

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Suppose an architect or planner is involved in designing some public space, say a park. Who are the stakeholders involved and what are their interests? What activities might take place there? What qualities should that public place have? The client, a local municipality, will want to combine a pleasant public service with some level of institutional control to prevent loitering, pollution, etc. The public may want a place were they can relax, but some also want a place to work and meet. The planner must find a position vis-a-vis the public’s wish for leisure and connectivity (e.g. by installing benches, free wireless internet, and electricity), institutional control (e.g. by somehow limiting access to wireless infrastructure, installing CCTV cameras, or uncomfortable benches that cannot be used long), and stimulating the public character of the park (e.g. by discouraging individual media consumption altogether).

Moreover, the stakeholders do not solely consist of the municipality and a heterogeneous public, but also of the wireless internet provider, the technical repair staff, the security agency monitoring the park behind screens, and even theaters, cafés and shops in the vicinity that might be affected by the media-consumption and online buying habits of the now-connected public. Similarly, free wireless internet may shift the intended activities of the park from being a local public meeting place for co-existence towards a place for individualized networking on a potentially global scale. This in turn influences the quality of a park as a specific public setting. If people use Twitter and Facebook to post that they are in the park, will they be more likely to meet acquaintances or strangers there? Moreover, the representation and quality of the park may be largely outside of the planner’s hands when people upload and share their experiences of that place online.

mobile_city planning urban_design architecture michiel_de_lange media

Excellent blog post by Donald Elliott on why and how (un)affordability is systemic, and what (little) steps municipalities can take to mitigate the problem.
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What can local government do? It cannot solve the macro-economic problem, but it can remove barriers that drive housing prices even higher than they need to be. Minimum lot size and minimum house size requirements are two of the main culprits. Artificially low multi-family densities are another, and narrow definitions of allowable housing types are a third.
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affordability housing planning urbanplanning density donald_elliott

"Puget Sound is a funnel. Anything that we do at the top end of the funnel comes out at the bottom end." Sometimes painful reading, this article looks at the effect of bad wastewater runoff management and its deleterious effect on the environment. "Barbie Doll" housing colonies are the worst offenders, not least because old bylaws & regulations haven't kept up (or up to date) with new developments in treatment and approach.

seattle puget_sound sprawl growth planning water run_off

Fascinating article on how planned "new urbanist" American suburbs are being studied by international delegations (specifically China) for replication in those countries. Kind of scary.... (Blogged this, April 18/08)

suburbia usatoday sprawl planning master_planning suburban_style china

Found via Richard Florida's "Creative Class" blog, Leinberger's article builds in part on a story that was reported in The Charlotte Observer a while back. With foreclosures on the rise and houses being abandoned, the absence of any sort of on-site amenities acts like an accelerant toward slum-hood.

atlantic_monthly chris_leinberger planning redevelopment slums sprawl suburbs

Useful reference from City of Seattle re. street / urbanscape improvements, broken down in detailed format according to features (from "awnings" to "underground utilities").

planning reference seattle street_scape urban_design

automobile cars highway_system infrastructure planning project_for_public_spaces transportation

automobile blight infrastructure planning reference roads transportation