Schoolyards: An Untapped Community Resource?

By Emma Vinella-Brusher 100 million. That’s how many Americans, including 28 million children, do not have access to a neighborhood park.[1] Despite the seeming abundance of local natural spaces, lack of park access is a problem here in Chapel Hill and Carrboro, too – according to The Trust for Public Land, a combined 23,909 residents (~30%) of both towns live farther than a 10 minute walk … Continue reading Schoolyards: An Untapped Community Resource?

From the Archives: How to Engage your Community Online

This week’s post was originally published by Sarah Parkins on April 19, 2018. This year has seen the world scramble to switch much of its in-person activities to an online format. What does this mean for community engagement? In her piece, Sarah Perkins shares her master’s project work, which researched the best practices for utilizing online community engagement tools. It’s no secret that community engagement … Continue reading From the Archives: How to Engage your Community Online

How to Engage your Community Online

It’s no secret that community engagement is a necessary part of planning that includes citizens in the ways that their communities are shaped. What is a secret is the best way to run community engagement processes. Planners have had varying success with engagement plans when balancing how to include as many voices as possible with getting feedback that is valuable to planning projects. Continue reading How to Engage your Community Online

New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens

In 2016, a small group urban planning enthusiasts from across North America formed a Facebook group to provide for the dearth of urbanist memes of the internet. From humble beginnings, the New Urbanist Memes for Transit Oriented Teens (NUMTOT) group has grown to over 40,000 members from around the world. From posts seeking transit-oriented recommendations to philosophical debates about planning’s most complex issues, the group … Continue reading New Urbanist Memes for Transit-Oriented Teens

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

Charm City Grit: Change in Baltimore Starts with the Community

Baltimore is a city of contradictions. Within its boundaries, one can find self-avowed social justice warriors who are determined to undo centuries of injustice in the city. One can also find people who have never left the sanctuary of whiteness of the Inner Harbor. Continue reading Charm City Grit: Change in Baltimore Starts with the Community

Science Fiction and Planning

As planners, we often engage in visioning processes with communities to identify and elaborate on the kinds of communities we want to plan. Our vision plans build an image of what could be in order to inform the agenda, strategies and policies we then develop and implement as planners. Vision planning can be an imaginative space to respond to the needs and desires of a … Continue reading Science Fiction and Planning

Planners as Warriors

A few weeks prior to the election I was asked to facilitate the first Plan for All Safe Space. Plan for All is a sub-committee of the student governing body of the UNC Department of City and Regional Planning (DCRP); its mission is to increase inclusivity, equity, diversity, and social justice within DCRP and the broader planning profession. The concept of a “Safe Space” emerged … Continue reading Planners as Warriors