Category: Placemaking and Design

Landscape Architecture, Placemaking and Design

Undergrads analyze UNC spaces

As part of the Community Design and Green Architecture (ENEC 420) course with Eric Thomas, the Project Manager and Lead Designer at Development Finance Initiative, undergraduate UNC students evaluated public space. Using video and behavior mapping techniques, students evaluated how different local spaces are used, or not, at different times of the day and on different days. They noted weather and other factors that would … Continue reading Undergrads analyze UNC spaces

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Personal Reflections, Placemaking and Design

Seeing the Weird in a Rapidly Changing Austin

Seeing the Weird in a Rapidly Changing Austin This winter break, I crossed another city/state off my bucket list by visiting Austin, Texas. Known for its unique flair (“Keep Austin Weird” is the city’s marketing slogan), music, barbeque, and other fried foods, the city’s rapid change in population over the last couple of decades has transformed its physical landscape. The US Census estimates that from … Continue reading Seeing the Weird in a Rapidly Changing Austin

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Bike Ped, Land Use and Environmental Planning, Placemaking and Design

Got Green Space?

Planning for Preventative Health Urban green space provides a place to escape the concrete and steel of urban city centers, spend time in nature, connect with others, and get moving. As Americans become increasingly sedentary, a push towards funding and implementing green space as a means of increasing individual health has gained traction. Doctors now write green prescriptions for patients to go walk at their … Continue reading Got Green Space?

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Personal Reflections, Placemaking and Design

Weaving together the Threads of Our Community: Weaver Street Market

This piece was originally published by UNC undergraduate students Adam Hasan and Ezra Rawitsch on their personal blog, Global Third Space, on June 15, 2017.  If the sun hadn’t traced a low, southerly path across the sky that morning, it’d have seemed like the first day of autumn. A chilly breeze wound its way through the enormous oak that hangs over the Weaver Street Lawn, and … Continue reading Weaving together the Threads of Our Community: Weaver Street Market

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Personal Reflections, Placemaking and Design

How Hey Arnold inspired suburban millennials to dream about the city

Nickelodeon 90’s cartoons largely reflect the suburban world that much of its young audience grew up in. Think Spongebob’s Bikini Bottom, or the Rugrats’ California single-family residential neighborhood. One show, Hey Arnold, stands out from the rest, taking its viewers out of the suburbs for a trip downtown. Continue reading How Hey Arnold inspired suburban millennials to dream about the city

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Opinion, Placemaking and Design

What Charlottesville Tells Us About Silent Sam

On Saturday August 12th, a white nationalist rally protesting the planned removal of a Confederate monument in Charlottesville dissolved into violence that left three dead and many injured. The circumstances that led to this tragedy bear an uncomfortable resemblance to events that took place less than two years ago at UNC, when Confederate heritage supporters rallied to defend Silent Sam. Then, as now, counter-protestors rallied … Continue reading What Charlottesville Tells Us About Silent Sam

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Personal Reflections, Placemaking and Design, Transportation

Everything You’ll Learn from an Urban Design Competition

I was sitting on a Chicago Transit Authority bus, a fitting location to receive the news, when I learned that our team of Department of City and Regional Planning students won an honorable mention in the Urban Land Institute’s Urban Ideas Competition. Continue reading Everything You’ll Learn from an Urban Design Competition

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Personal Reflections, Placemaking and Design

Virtual Reality Excites Again

I used to think virtual reality (VR) was a silly endeavor of the late 20th century. As a kid, I recall shooting at two-dimensional 32-bit flying aliens as the heavy headset kept sliding off my head. Even then, in the 1990s, I viewed VR as a sad excuse for a game experience. Gamers were better off avoiding the hassle of these clunky devices that did … Continue reading Virtual Reality Excites Again

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Downtown Revitalization, Economic Development, Placemaking and Design

Now Available Online – Just Creativity: Planning for Inclusive Prosperity

Volume 41 of the Carolina Planning Journal is now available for free on the Carolina Planning Journal webpage. Just scroll to the bottom and click on the link! “Planning for creativity must focus not only on maximizing revenues or attracting capital, it must also address the way that the arts contribute to more equitable, livable, and inclusive cities for all.” Continue reading Now Available Online – Just Creativity: Planning for Inclusive Prosperity

Carolina Planning Journal Board
Personal Reflections, Placemaking and Design

Kisses Beyond the Gate: Putting up Walls in a Country that Values Intimacy

This post was originally published by Agora, the Urban Planning and Design Journal at the University of Michigan. It is reproduced here with permission.  Davor was the first one who kissed me. Let me explain. I recently spent the first month of my summer in Santiago, Chile, where I worked for an NGO called Ciudad Emergente. The organization does interventions and research surrounding public spaces … Continue reading Kisses Beyond the Gate: Putting up Walls in a Country that Values Intimacy

Carolina Planning Journal Board