By Jacob Becker Just like you, hopefully, recently I’ve been spending the majority of my day inside my house. For me, after a spring break visit turned into a semester-long stay, that means staying at my parents’ house in New Jersey. I don’t want to give the Garden State a bad name—it’s full of natural beauty and wonderful bagels, with a competent governor who made … Continue reading A Walking Tour of McMansion Hell
It’s not easy being green . . . unless you are a greenway. In that case, you’re probably a hot ticket for municipalities, especially those in North Carolina. As part of the East Coast Greenway, 372 miles of trails wind across the state. Get Going NC, a blog created by Cary-based author Joe Miller in cooperation with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North … Continue reading The Path to Equity: Do Greenways Help or Harm Low-Income Communities?
“The city is a granite garden, composed of many smaller gardens, set in a garden world… Nature in the city must be cultivated, like a garden, rather than ignored or subdued.” In her 1984 classic The Granite Garden, Anne Spirn challenges the idea of the city in opposition to nature, advocating instead a theory of urban ecology. She contends that humans coexist with natural forces … Continue reading A Walk through the Granite Garden
XKCD is a beloved, online nerd comic that primarily involves esoteric jokes about physics and math with a healthy dose of snark. But that’s not all these humble stick figures provide. They can also offer valuable insight and lessons into some of the finer complications of planning: from big-picture issues, to niche problems. Therefore, through careful review and study, you can use XKCD comics to … Continue reading What XKCD Can Teach You About Planning
Each year, the Urban Land Institute conducts the annual Hines Student Competition — an opportunity for graduate students students across the country to form teams and create a visionary land use development design for a site in a North American city. Each team of five must have members representing at least three different disciplines. Teams have two weeks to produce graphics and written analysis supporting … Continue reading DCRP in the Urban Land Institute Hines Student Competition
Durham Bicycle Boulevards has a vision for how bicycle boulevards can make biking safer in Durham. Continue reading Advocating for Bicycle Boulevards: A Process in Durham, NC
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
Why are there shutters on all these homes? Continue reading Shut It Down: An Exploration of Shutters
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
On the corner of New York City’s 13th Street and 5th Avenue, hundreds of people use the sidewalk adjacent to The New School University Center every day. For a university in Manhattan, “campus” is a loose term that defines the parts of the city traversed by its students. Union Square Park—a magnet of public life—is a proximate and popular space for students and faculty to relax outside, … Continue reading Street Seats: a student-designed parklet in NYC
