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
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
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
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
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
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
North Carolina’s Triangle is accustomed to global recognition for its research and institutions of higher learning. According to Gil Peñalosa, founder and chair of 880 Cities, it could soon become a paragon of park planning and design. Continue reading Better than Central Park: Gil Peñalosa’s vision for Raleigh’s Dorothea Dix Park
Historic Stagville tells this story of buildings and the history of enslaved people prominently, in contrast to many other preserved and historic plantation sites around the nation. Continue reading Historic Stagville: This Place Matters
Black Diamond: A Public Backyard aims to restore and rekindle these connections that our bustling lifestyles have neglected by opening a third space. Continue reading Black Diamond: a UNC alumni-curated Third Space in downtown Greensboro
A special post from participatory practitioner James Rojas Immigrants bring new, innovative urban planning ideas to this country based on their prior lived experiences, yet these ideas are rarely heard in an urban planning meeting or incorporated into zoning and plans. Most immigrants don’t attend public meetings. Many are busy struggling and often live in the shadows of our communities. Many may be too humble, or … Continue reading Incorporating Immigrants’ On-the-Ground Knowledge and Lived Experiences into the Planning Process
