Planners Across America: John Wesley leads the charge to introduce urbanism into mega-suburb of Mesa, Arizona.
Why Cities Should Back Off of Setbacks
For all their popularity, setbacks have little basis in engineering or architecture. They are simply regulatory whims.
City Books For Non-Planning Nerds
As the library of books on urbanism expands by the year, here are some fun, engaging titles for city nerds and non-nerds alike.
It’s Time to Stop Demonization of Developers
Among the grandiose promises, half-truths, and outright whoppers that sponsors of Measure S proffered, one of the most consistent messages concerned the depravity of real estate developers.
Post-Recession, Master Planned Communities Come Back to Life
Ontario Ranch is but the most massive of a new generation of large master planned communities that are in various stages of development statewide. Technically, Ontario Ranch is an annexation, consisting of nine master-planned communities that are enormous — on the order of several thousand residential units — in their own right.
Trump Raises Stakes For Urban Journalism
At an annual gathering of land use journalists, we came away with more questions than answers about how the Trump administration will treat cities.
New Planning Initiatives Strive for Equity in Baltimore
The Planners Across America series visits Maryland for an interview with Baltimore Planning Director Tom Stosur.
Kings, Despots, Dictators, Cities and the End of History
Recent history suggests that Fukuyama’s theory faces peril, if not outright obliteration. What this world will look like—figuratively and literally—in a generation or two is anyone’s guess.
Coalitions Square Off Over Los Angeles Anti-Growth Measure
Measure S, on the March 7 citywide ballot, is by many accounts the apotheosis of so-called ballot-box planning – for better or worse.
McDermid Manages New Oklahoma Land Rush
Planning Department Director Aubrey McDermid discusses planning’s role in the Oklahoma City’s ongoing reinvestment and revitalization.
From New Jersey to the World
At a time when so many universities are flaunting themselves like brands — or, worse, like franchises — Princeton’s commitment to tradition serves it well. It serves the world well, too.
Tech Windfall, Deportation Order Threaten to Snap Los Angeles in Half
Deportation is — to say the least — the most perverse way to solve a housing crisis.
From New Jersey to the world
The fervor for American education — with a disturbing, and often naïve, reverence for an Ivy League degree — is arguably more intense in Beijing and Abu Dhabi than it is in Boston and Ann Arbor.
There’s a Citywide Planning Battle Raging in Los Angeles
While it addresses urban planning and takes place in a defiantly liberal city, the battle over Measure S – also known as the “Neighborhood Integrity Initiative” – nonetheless echoes many of the frustrations and fears that sent Donald Trump to the White House and ejected the United Kingdom from the European Union.
2016 Year-in-Review
Everyone who pays rent in California knows that the housing crisis truly came to fruition this year. It influenced nearly every story I wrote. Very close to home, we opened a Phase 2 of the …
Richard Florida’s Reckoning: Review of The New Urban Crisis
Richard Florida’s forthcoming book, The New Urban Crisis, will likely elicit one of two responses.
Richard Florida’s Reckoning: Review of ‘The New Urban Crisis
Today, many cities, and perhaps Florida himself, have become victims of their own success.