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Planning


06.13.13: Vishaan Chakrabarti

Building Hyperdensity and Civic Delight
On Places, Vishaan Chakrabarti argues that the hyperdense city is more prosperous, equitable, ecological and delightful — and vital to America's strength as a nation.
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05.28.13: David Burney & Nancy Levinson

An Interview with David Burney: On New York and the 21st-Century City-State
On Places, an interview with New York City Design and Construction Commissioner David Burney, who reflects on the urban design record of the Bloomberg years, the post-Sandy recovery effort, and the rise of the 21st-century city-state.
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04.15.13: Lawrence Vale & Annemarie Gray

The Displacement Decathlon
On Places, Lawrence Vale and Annemarie Gray compare the cases of communities displaced by the Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, where plans for the 2016 Games are unfolding, and Atlanta, 20 years ago.
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03.05.13: Arjun Appadurai

Housing and Hope
On Places, Arjun Appadurai explores the global challenges of housing in megacities, and argues for the relationship of secure housing to human dignity and full citizenship.
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01.17.13: Jill Desimini

Cartographic Grounds: Projecting the Landscape Imaginary
On Places, landscape architect Jill Desimini explores a range of cartographic practices, from a medieval map of the British Isles to contemporary data visualization.
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01.14.13: Shannon Mattern

Paju Bookcity: The Next Chapter
On Places, Shannon Mattern visits Paju Bookcity in South Korea— a special economic zone dedicated to books —and high-style architecture — now being remade for the digital era.
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10.11.12: Richard Campanella

What the Nation’s Best-Educated Amateur Planners Learned from Hurricane Isaac. And Gustav. And Rita and Katrina. And Cindy, Ivan, Lili, Isidore, and Georges.
On Places, geographer Richard Campanella analyzes the many lessons that New Orleanians have learned from weathering powerful hurricanes — and he argues that the toughest test is yet to come.
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07.19.12: Anisha Gade

Olympic Urbanism: The Athletes' Village
On Places, a slideshow on the urban form of Olympic Villages, from derelict ruins in Berlin to suburban townhomes in Sydney to public housing in Athens.
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06.28.12: Kenny Cupers

Paris: Life Forms
On Places, a slideshow by Kenny Cupers documenting the nuanced realities of life in the public housing estates of suburban Paris.
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04.19.12: Josh Sides

20 Years Later: Legacies of the Los Angeles Riots
On Places, California historian Josh Sides assesses the dynamic changes in South Los Angeles in the 20 years since the riots of 1992.
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04.16.12: Aaron Paley & Amanda Berman

CicLAvia: Reimagining the Streets of Los Angeles
On Places, Aaron Paley and Amanda Berman argue that the semi-annual CicLAvia — which bans cars from parts of L.A. — is inspiring Angelenos to imagine a new urban future.
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02.20.12: Lawrence Vale

Housing Chicago: Cabrini-Green to Parkside of Old Town
On Places, Lawrence Vale recounts the troubled saga of Chicago's now-demolished Cabrini-Green, and the mixed-income new-urbanist style communities that are replacing the old public housing.
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11.17.11: Lisa Findley & Liz Ogbu

South Africa: From Township to Town
On Places, Lisa Findley and Liz Ogbu describe the ongoing struggle to transform the once segrated black townships of South Africa into diverse and thriving towns.
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11.14.11: Robert E. Lang & Arthur C. Nelson

Megapolitan America
On Places, planners Robert Lang and Arthur Nelson argue that the United States can now be understood in terms of a new geography of large and powerful "megapolitan" regions.
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11.10.11: Andrew Ross

Bird on Fire: Lessons from the World's Least Sustainable City
On Places, Andrew Ross analyzes the contradictory political and economic forces that once made Phoenix the fastest-growing city in the U.S. — and today a prime casualty of the crash.
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10.27.11: Adam Harrison Levy

Urbanized: An Interview with Gary Hustwit
An interview with filmmaker Gary Hustwit, director of Helvetica, Objectified and the new documentary Urbanized, which opens this weekend in New York.
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09.14.11: Aron Chang

Beyond Foreclosure: The Future of Suburban Housing
On Places, Aron Chang argues that the foreclosure crisis highlights the need to transform suburban housing — to make it responsive not to dated demographics and wishful economics but to the actual needs of a diversifying and dynamic population.
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09.06.11: James Barilla

The Road to Exurbia
On Places, James Barilla recounts the rural pleasures of growing up in a hill town in Western Massachusetts — yet regrets the deep environmental footprint of low-density exurban life.
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04.25.11: Thomas J. Campanella

Jane Jacobs and the Death and Life of American Planning
On Places, Thomas Campanella evaluates the complex legacy Jane Jacobs, including the ongoing marginalization of the urban planning profession.
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02.27.11: Mohamed Elshahed

Tahrir Square: Social Media, Public Space
On Places, Mohamed Elshahed argues that the physical occupation of Tahrir Square in Cairo was just as vital as online social media to the early success of the January 25 Revolution.
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09.20.10: Deborah Gans

Haiti and the Potential of Permaculture
On Places, architect Deborah Gans explores how the temporary resettlement camps in post-earthquake Haiti might be transformed into self-sufficient agrarian villages.
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05.24.10: Jesse LeCavalier

All Those Numbers: Logistics, Territory and Walmart
On Places, architect Jesse LeCavalier dissects the ever-expanding ambitions of Walmart, which is now targeting major cities as its next big(box) market.
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04.19.10: Meena Kadri

People's Way: Urban Mobility in Ahmedabad
On Places, New Zealand-based design writer Meena Kadri rides the new bus-rapid-transit in Ahmedabad, a system that strives to mix old and new, rich and poor — and even offers yoga classes to the drivers.
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04.05.10: Denise Hoffman Brandt

The View to America Street from Mrs. Fair’s Front Door, July 21, 2009
On Places, landscape architect Denise Hoffman Brandt offers a vivid portrait of the ongoing post-Katrina struggles of one neighborhood, and one household, in New Orleans.
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04.01.10: Richard Campanella

Delta Urbanism and New Orleans: After
On Places, the second of a two-part essay by Richard Campanella, on the ongoing struggles of New Orleans to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.
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03.29.10: Richard Campanella

Delta Urbanism and New Orleans: Before
On Places, an excerpt from Delta Urbanism: New Orleans, geographer Richard Campanella's account of the ongoing environmental and political struggles of post-Katrina New Orleans — and why a great American city remains pathetically vulnerable to further catastrophe.
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02.08.10: Nate Berg

The Olympics and the City
Vancouver planning director Brent Toderian talks with Planetizen's Nate Berg, about how the city has met the urban design challenge of playing host to the Winter Olympics.
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01.27.10: Hector Fernando Burga

A View of Haiti from Liberty City
Miami-based urban designer Hector Fernando Burga asks difficult questions about how urban designers can respond effectively to the disaster in Haiti.
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10.10.09: Timothy Beatley

The 100-Mile Thanksgiving
Timothy Beatley describes a new tradition in the planning department at the University of Virginia: the 100-Mile Thanksgiving, for which students prepare the annual feast, trying to use food produced within 100 miles of the Charlottesville campus.
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05.15.09: Whitney Moon

Reclaiming the Ruin
The second coming of Detroit.
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10.15.08: Donlyn Lyndon

The New U.S. Embassy in Berlin
In creating a new U.S. embassy in Berlin, architectural design is just one of the challenges.
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10.15.08: UrbanLab

Growing Water
Growing Water is a bold proposal by a team of Chicago urban designers for how cities can ensure the availability of an increasingly scarce resource.
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10.15.08: Guy Nordenson, Catherine Seavitt & Adam Yarinsky

On the Water: The New York/New Jersey Harbor
As the planet warms, rising seas will endanger coastal communities around the world. Engineer Guy Nordenson proposes a bold plan to protect New York City.
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04.16.08: Alexandra Lange

Will Miss Brooklyn Bow Out?
The redevelopment of the Atlantic Yards was based on a false assumption of Brooklyn's inferiority complex.
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12.15.06: Allan Jacobs

The State of City Planning Today
A veteran city planner and educator analyzes the anemia of U.S. planning, and detects signs of life in neighborhood activism.
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01.15.05: Daniel S. Friedman

Campus Design as Critical Practice
How to turn a lackluster midwestern campus into an international cultural destination.
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11.01.01: Ruth Durack

Village Vices: The Contradiction of New Urbanism and Sustainability
A critique of New Urbanism focusing not on its traditionalism but on the unsustainability of its planning models.
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07.15.95: Thomas J. Campanella

Splendid China
A tour of Splendid China, the "world's largest miniature scenic spot.
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04.01.89: Catherine Brown, William Morrish

Western Civic Art: Works in Progress
In 1989 Phoenix, Arizona, commissioned one of the first public art master plans. The city now has one of the strongest public art programs in the country.
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07.15.83: Kevin Lynch

In No Order Whatsoever
Just before his death in 1984, the influential urban planner Kevin Lynch compiled a list of topics he thought important for the future of cities. The list is as relevant as ever.
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