Planners can design places for many purposes: to promote commerce, to protect us from natural disasters, to uplift historical significance. As mental health and social relationships become increasingly significant, new questions rise to the top: What about planning for the way people feel? How can planners better understand how environments impact well-being and then learn to shape more joyful, healing spaces? In this episode of People Behind the Plans, Megan Oliver, AICP, WELL AP, founder of Hello Happy Design, discusses how the intersection of neuroscience and planning — called neurourbanism — can provide planners with the necessary tools to design places for social and emotional health. Oliver also speaks to the rising awareness of neurodiversity and how we can change our assumptions about how community members engage with the people and places around them. This episode was sponsored by Nexus at University of Michigan Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/megan-oliver-on-how-to-plan-for-happiness-in-cities/

The history of planning includes racist policies and practices that have resulted in entrenched inequity and enduring systemic barriers. Understanding the complexities and impacts of those barriers is necessary to dismantling ingrained inequalities and achieving transformative change. A recent edition of the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA) called “Antiracist Futures: Disrupting Racist Planning Practices in Workplaces, Institutions, and Communities” centers racial justice in the planning field, documenting the current state of the profession and planning education, and offering tangible strategies for implementing anti-racist practices that are adaptable and responsive. In this episode of People Behind the Plans, JAPA contributors Rashad Williams, Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in Public Policy at the University of Pittsburgh, and Anaid Yerena, Associate Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Washington, Tacoma, speak about anti-racist community planning concepts that lay the foundation for planners to reckon with history, disrupt the status quo and find new ways to pursue equity in every community. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/anaid-yerena-and-rashad-williams-on-building-an-equitable-future-of-planning/

Jewell Littles Walton is an urban planning and real estate professional with a career spanning multiple decades. She joins Dina Walters, a member of APA's Prioritize Equity team, for this special episode to share the story of uncovering her family’s connection to the early 20th century Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood was known as “Black Wall Street”, one of the most prosperous African-American communities in the United States, and was home to one of the nation’s worst race massacres. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/rediscovering-roots-planner-jewell-littles-walton-uncovers-family-ties-to-tulsas-black-wall-street/

When it comes to essential services and the stakeholders of a city, music and the people who make up a music ecosystem may not always be mentioned in the same breath as utilities and schools or residents and businesses. But music can enhance quality of life and plays an important role in generating prosperity for people, organizations and cities as a whole when it coexists harmoniously among its neighbors. Shain Shapiro has dedicated the last decade to helping cities embrace the value of music and plan for it with thoughtful policies. He wrote about his experience in his debut book, This Must Be the Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better. In this episode, Shapiro joins host Meghan Stromberg to discuss how planners can champion music policy in cities, as well as a case study of an American city that took a strategic approach to incorporating music in its long-term plan. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/shain-shapiro-on-taylor-swift-and-the-benefits-of-a-music-policy-for-your-city/

Addressing systemic racism and entrenched inequity has become an imperative for many institutions. Planners are in a unique position to make a big course correction on equity through comprehensive planning — if they embrace the opportunity to lead. On this episode of People Behind the Plans, Taiwo Jaiyeoba joins host Meghan Stromberg to talk about leading zoning reform efforts in Charlotte and Greensboro, North Carolina, both as a planning director and in his current role as city manager. He also shares his tips for winning over naysayers and his thoughts on what makes a good comprehensive plan. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/taiwo-jaiyeoba-on-how-planners-can-lead-through-zoning-reform-and-by-crafting-equitable-comprehensive-plans/

It seems the word “unprecedented” has been used so often to describe everything from the weather to public health in recent years that the only certainty is uncertainty. This makes the job of urban planners especially difficult as they try to anticipate what their cities will need in the decades to come. In the business world, a type of modeling called exploratory scenario planning (XSP) has been helping companies cope with volatility for decades. Now the idea is gaining traction among planners, thanks to the work of researchers like Robert Goodspeed, AICP. In this episode, APA Research Manager Joe DeAngelis, AICP, sits down with Goodspeed to talk about how XSP can help planners bring together disparate stakeholders and variables to build robust plans that can help cities prepare for whatever comes next — be it rain, shine, boom or bust. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/robert-goodspeed-on-how-exploratory-scenario-planning-helps-imagine-uncertain-futures/

The average person on the street may not know what a planning professional does, but they probably have opinions on traffic, housing, and the many other elements of daily life that planners influence. Planner Dave Amos bet on that natural curiosity when he started his planning-focused YouTube channel “City Beautiful” 10 years ago. Since then, he’s seen the community of planning content creators grow on social media and says they’re feeding an appetite that’s been there all along. This episode, Amos sits down with People Behind the Plans host Meghan Stromberg at the 2023 National Planning Conference to talk about his own fortuitous route to the profession, why he’s telling the planning story in exciting, new ways, and how planners can lean into social media to connect with their communities. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/youtuber-and-planner-dave-amos-on-teaching-a-crash-course-in-urban-planning-one-video-at-a-time/

In this APA podcast - part of the Planning for Equity series - Bobby Boone, founder and chief strategist of &Access, discusses economic development strategies for combatting displacement of small minority-owned businesses. Boone shares how planners can work with small businesses, what to look out for, and how to engage owners. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/planning-to-ensure-longevity-for-small-minority-owned-businesses/

In this APA podcast - part of the Planning for Equity series - Daniel Besinaiz, senior comprehensive planner at the City of Colorado Springs, shares his somewhat unexpected and personal journey on learning to celebrate and embrace his Latino heritage. Hear how Daniel re-connected with his roots and applies inspiration from his heritage into his current planning work. Finally, hear how being a part of the Latinos and Planning Division has helped with his journey. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/embracing-heritage-how-culture-influences-your-planning-work/

Three-plus decades after the Americans with Disabilities Act was passed, the built environment remains a maze of obstacles. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than one in four Americans live with a disability. Despite what many think, disability isn’t a rare experience for only people on the edges of society — and planning for it has collateral benefits that improve quality of life for everyone. Rebekah Taussig, advocate and author of Sitting Pretty: The View From My Ordinary, Resilient, Disabled Body, has been navigating the world from her wheelchair since she was 6 years old. She recalls feeling like everyone else created their own narratives for her life. In this episode of People Behind the Plans we sit down with Taussig before her keynote address at APA’s National Planning Conference. She explains how storytelling has allowed her to reclaim the narrative of her own life and help others understand how isolating, cumbersome, unjust, and unsustainable our cities and our culture are for people with disabilities. Listen to hear her vision for a world designed with everyone in mind — not just those considered “average” — and some communication tips for planners trying to build support for their visions. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/disability-advocate-rebekah-taussig-on-built-environment-barriers-you-might-not-see/ This episode is sponsored by AARP

Every two years, the American Planning Association Transportation Planning Division publishes the State of Transportation Planning Report with the intention of highlighting innovative ideas, cutting-edge research, and interesting experiments in transportation planning in the United States. As part of the 2022 edition of the report - titled “Intersections + Identities: A Radical Rethinking of Our Transportation Experiences" - we’re bringing you a series of critical conversations with pioneers and industry leaders across the US who are offering their insights into some of the most challenging issues facing our field. In this episode we hear from Misty Klann and Cole Grisham, who are both closely involved in managing the Federal Highway Administration's Transportation Planning in Tribal Communities Research Study. This research seeks to align available planning analysis tools with Tribal community needs based on a range of contextual factors, and to quantify the benefits of planning analysis in the project selection and delivery processes. The findings are intended to contribute to Tribal communities deciding how best to optimize the funding made available through the Tribal Transportation Program. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/critical-conversations-in-transportation-planning-misty-klann-and-cole-grisham/

Philadelphia is a public art epicenter — and not by chance. The city has long institutionalized investment in local muralists through programs like Mural Arts Philadelphia, a nonprofit created in 1998 by artist and executive director Jane Golden. Through more than 4,000 murals, the program has helped residents celebrate identity, tackle issues like environmental justice, and paint the change they want to see. In this episode of People Behind the Plans, Golden shares the community engagement strategies that help Mural Arts reflect the creativity, concerns, and perspectives of its diverse city. We also discuss ways planners can partner with local arts programs to infuse their projects with public art. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/mural-arts-philadelphia-jane-golden-planning-and-public-art-ignite-change/ Episode Sponsor: Nexus at University of Michigan

Every two years, the American Planning Association Transportation Planning Division publishes the State of Transportation Planning Report with the intention of highlighting innovative ideas, cutting-edge research, and interesting experiments in transportation planning in the United States. As part of the 2022 edition of the report - titled “Intersections + Identities: A Radical Rethinking of Our Transportation Experiences" - we’re bringing you a series of critical conversations with pioneers and industry leaders across the US who are offering their insights into some of the most challenging issues facing our field. In this episode, we hear from Tamika Butler, a national expert on issues related to public policy, the built environment, equity, anti-racism, diversity and inclusion, organizational behavior, and change management, who wears many hats (and bike helmets!). The conversation covers a wide range of topics related to Tamika's research, which employs a critical race, historical, legal, and policy-based approach to examine how transportation policy and infrastructure have been used to segregate, isolate, and prevent the mobility of Black and other historically oppressed groups of people. Tamika is the principal and founder of Tamika L. Butler Consulting and a doctoral student in Urban Planning at UCLA’s Luskin School of Public Affairs. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/critical-conversations-in-transportation-planning-tamika-butler/

As the old saying goes, “when all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” For decades, zoning has been the hammer swung by cities at a laundry list of challenges. But this blunt tool, developed to regulate land use and density, has had profound collateral damage, planner Nolan Gray argues. Cities and planners have long been constrained by a zoning “straitjacket,” he says, preventing them from solving the problems that plague communities today: housing affordability, sprawl, segregation, environmental concerns. How can we reverse that trend? Gray’s new book, Arbitrary Lines, looks for answers in the form of zoning reform. “My argument in the book is, yes, zoning has failed, and we should abolish zoning. But it’s not a pure deregulation argument. It’s a ‘we’re-regulating-the-wrong-things' argument. I actually do think planners have a hugely important role to play in the impacts of new development.” —Nolan Gray, Planner and Author of Arbitrary Lines In this special episode of the People Behind the Plans podcast, Gray sits down with guest host Jason Jordan, APA’s director of public affairs, to examine the cities and states charting a new course for zoning reform — and offer advice for planners navigating the myriad interests impacting land use decisions. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/arbitrary-lines-author-nolan-gray-on-zoning-reform-and-hitting-plannings-reset-button/

Every two years, the American Planning Association Transportation Planning Division publishes the State of Transportation Planning Report with the intention of highlighting innovative ideas, cutting-edge research, and interesting experiments in transportation planning in the United States. As part of the 2022 edition of the report - titled “Intersections + Identities: A Radical Rethinking of Our Transportation Experiences" - we’re bringing you a series of critical conversations with pioneers and industry leaders across the US who are offering their insights into some of the most challenging issues facing our field. In this podcast episode, we’ll hear from Judy Shanley, a Project Director with the National Office of Easterseals in Chicago, and Claire Stanley, a Public Policy Analyst at the National Disability Rights Network (NDRN). Their conversation brings forth insightful ideas and guidance on how transportation professionals can reimagine how we plan for maximum mobility and accessibility in our transportation infrastructure and beyond. Advertisement: APA Passport Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/critical-conversations-in-transportation-planning-judy-shanley-and-claire-stanley/

While it’s hard to have missed the buzz that’s been building around blockchain over the last five years, it’s easy to be confused and overwhelmed by its applications. Cryptocurrency and NFTs have been in the news recently, but less has been said about blockchain’s potential in urban planning and city government. Those were the questions Mark Wheeler, CIO of the city of Philadelphia, wanted to answer when he got interested in blockchain and Web 3.0 technology. With a background in planning, Wheeler is passionate about community engagement and making open data accessible to the citizens of Philly. And he’s been exploring how blockchain can provide transparency to the data collection that fuels smart cities. In this episode, Wheeler shares what he’s learned about blockchain’s potential, his advice for planners, and where he looks for inspiration and innovation. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/philadelphia-cio-mark-wheeler-web-3-and-blockchain-could-bring-transparency-to-smart-cities/

One of L.A. City Council’s newest members, Nithya Raman, ran on a platform of addressing homelessness and advancing inclusivity in city government. As a former urban planner and founder of a homelessness nonprofit, she’s working to show her fellow Angelenos how issues like homelessness, traffic, and gentrification all stem from a lack of housing inventory. After a year and a half in office, Raman shares her vision for reducing homelessness, offers tips for working more effectively with city government, and explains how planners can use their expertise to educate and galvanize communities for positive change. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/planner-and-city-official-nithya-ramans-vision-to-end-homelessness-in-los-angeles/

Every two years, the American Planning Association Transportation Planning Division publishes the State of Transportation Planning Report with the intention of highlighting innovative ideas, cutting-edge research, and interesting experiments in transportation planning in the United States. As part of the 2022 edition of the report - titled “Intersections + Identities: A Radical Rethinking of Our Transportation Experiences" - we’re bringing you a series of critical conversations with pioneers and industry leaders across the US who are offering their insights into some of the most challenging issues facing our field. In this podcast episode, we’ll hear from Olatunji Oboi Reed, who serves as the founding President & CEO of Equiticity, a racial equity movement, operationalizing for racial equity, increased mobility, and racial justice to improve the lives of Black and Brown people across the United States. He discusses emerging research on the ways in which a neighborhood’s infrastructure can have an impact on reducing violence, and how Equiticity’s Mobility Rituals are increasing social cohesion and collective efficacy through bike rides, neighborhood walking tours, and public transit excursions. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/critical-conversations-in-transportation-planning-olatunji-oboi-reed/

As a growing number of cities develop mobility justice initiatives, Naomi Doerner, MUP, is helping planners navigate these efforts to address systemic inequities and barriers in transportation. Doerner, principal and director of equity, diversity, and inclusion at  Nelson\Nygaard Consulting Associates and former program manager of Seattle's  innovative Transportation Equity Program, sat down with host Courtney Kashima, AICP, to talk about what mobility justice looks like in practice, including some inspirational examples from around the world. Doerner is also a co-founder and national co-organizer for the Untokening, a multiracial collective that centers the lived experiences of marginalized communities to address mobility justice and equity. Growing up riding public transit in Chicago and translating for her mother, Doerner draws on her personal experience as a translator and navigator to help planners and municipalities build bridges with communities, so the people living in them can play a prominent role in determining how places and spaces serve and support their needs. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/navigating-mobility-justice-with-naomi-doerner/

In this special episode of the People Behind the Plans podcast, guest host Jason Pugh, AICP, AIA, NOMA, LEED AP, president of the National Organization of Minority Architects (NOMA), sits down with Michael Ford, AIA, NOMA, keynote speaker at the 2022 APA National Planning Conference. In this live-recorded discussion in San Diego, Ford and Pugh talk about the unique connection between hip hop, urban design, community engagement, and so much more. Ford, a licensed architect, is the creator of the Hip Hop Architecture Camp, a free national summer camp, dedicated to introducing underrepresented youth to architecture planning, creative placemaking and economic development. Through the camp, he helps young people analyze hip hop songs by local artists to uncover critiques of their cities, then learn how to address those issues through urban design. Ford currently serves as president of the Wisconsin NOMA Chapter, and he is the founding principal of BrandNu Design Studio in Madison. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/the-intersection-of-hip-hop-and-architecture-with-michael-ford/

Dahvia Lynch, AICP, the director of Planning & Development Services for San Diego County, talks about her agency’s bold plans for housing and climate change, an accessory development unit program that helped drive a 70 percent uptick in ADUs, and an agricultural conservation program that has permanently set aside nearly 80,000 acres. The agency is also taking a connected approach to housing and vehicle miles traveled, while supporting electric vehicle adoption. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/San-Diego-County-Tackles-Affordable-Housing-and-Climate-Change/

In this episode of the Resilience Roundtable series, host Rich Roths, AICP, speaks with Michael Greenberg, Ph.D, distinguished professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. The two discuss the concept of cascading hazards, what they are, where are they more prevalent, how they are prepared for and mitigated against through plans at local, state and federal levels of government. Episode URL: https://www.planning.org/podcast/cascading-hazards-with-dr-michael-greenberg/ This episode is sponsored by Tyler Technologies

In this episode of the People Behind the Plans podcast series, host Courtney Kashima, AICP, is joined by Rasmus Astrup, partner and design principal at Danish urban design and landscape architecture practice SLA. Rasmus was a co-presenter during the 2021 National Planning Conference at a session titled, “Strategies to Combat Extreme Heat”. Rasmus and Courtney discuss the importance of biodiversity and nature-based solutions to address the needs of cities to mitigate against the effects of climate change and specific issues like extreme urban heat. The two also discuss a few of the projects that his firm worked on from places around the globe like Toronto, Abu Dhabi, Copenhagen, and Detroit. They also dig into the significance of local knowledge and expertise when taking on projects as well as how to deal with the disproportionate impacts on more vulnerable populations. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/fighting-climage-change-in-cities-with-biodiversity-and-nature-based-design/ This episode is sponsored by Tyler Technologies

If you're not on TikTok, you might not know that urban planning is going viral. But accounts like TalkingCities, run by Paul Stout, and others are distilling complex planning topics into bitesized, easily digestible videos. And viewers are eating them up. Paul's account has more than 150,000 followers and 3 million–plus likes. He bills it as "an introduction to urban design, city planning, and architecture," an avenue for teens and adults who don't know urban planning exists to become aware of it and get inspired to explore further. APA's Lindsay Nieman chats with Paul about how he got started, what planning subjects he's most interested in, why TikTok makes his channel's success possible, and even what it's like to get recognized because of his videos. The soon-to-be first-year master's student of city and regional planning at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, also gives a bit of insight into how planners can harness the power of TikTok in their own outreach. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/tiktoks-talkingcities-makes-urban-planning-fast-and-easy-to-grasp/

You might not realize it, but artificial intelligence, or AI, already affects your life in countless ways. Your favorite wayfinding app? It’s powered by AI. The product recommendations you get on that e-commerce site you visit regularly? That’s AI, too. The music, movie, and TV suggestions you see on streaming platforms; the notifications from your bank alerting you to possible fraudulent activity; the wearable technology giving you health information — they’re all driven by systems that use AI. And the AI market is only expected to grow — 20 percent annually over the next few years, in fact. In this conversation, led by APA’s research director Petra Hurtado, AICP, AI experts Neda Madi and Tom Sanchez discuss why planners need to pay attention to this technology (hint: it's already being used in many planning contexts, too). They talk in-depth about the potential impacts — positive and negative — as well as how planners can mitigate the negative ones. Their exchange is an eye-opening and ultimately inspiring dialogue for those who care about their communities. Neda Madi is the City Infrastructure Analytics director of the Network Dynamics Lab at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Tom Sanchez is professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech. This podcast was produced in partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/artificial-intelligence-and-urban-planning-what-planners-need-to-know-now/

Vacant lots make up nearly 17 percent of land in U.S. cities. A history of disinvestment has contributed to a significant overlap between neighborhoods with the highest concentration of vacant lots and those most threatened by the impacts of climate change. In Philadelphia, the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society (PHS) and the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) teamed up to solve this multipronged issue — one involving urban blight, community health, and a climate that's becoming hotter and wetter. Building on the Philadelphia LandCare program, their joint pilot project transforms vacant lots into climate-resilient pollinator gardens, using plants that are native to the region and thus better able to adapt to changing conditions. Philadelphia residents in two neighborhoods now enjoy access to nature much closer to home. The development of this green infrastructure is also opening economic doors for community members by providing skills training and creating jobs. In this episode of the APA Podcast, planning and community health manager Sagar Shah speaks with two people close to the project: Jen Mihills, executive director of Mid-Atlantic Regional Center at the NWF; and Samir Dalal, planning manager of the Philadelphia LandCare Program at the PHS. Throughout their comprehensive discussion, which began with the 2021 National Planning Conference session Nature-Based Solutions for Creating Climate Resilient Communities, they provide actionable advice to planners looking to use similarly low-cost but high-impact solutions in their own communities. Episode URL: https://www.planning.org/podcast/philadelphia-is-transforming-vacant-lots-into-climate-resilient-pollinator-gardens/

With an unprecedented season of wildfires barely in our rearview mirror, National Fire Protection Association veteran Michele Steinberg comes on the Resilience Roundtable podcast series to talk about wildfire mitigation and prevention. Her conversation with host Jim Schwab, FAICP, revolves around the NFPA’s newest policy initiative, Outthink Wildfire. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/we-need-to-outthink-wildfire-not-try-to-eliminate-it/ This episode is brought to you by Tyler Technologies

Cherie Jzar, AICP, has worked in more than a few areas of planning — from airport, transit, and comprehensive planning to community outreach and engagement. Now she's bringing her expertise to a new type of work: building more equitable policies and practices as the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Coordinator for Gastonia, North Carolina. Listen as she speaks with APA editor in chief Meghan Stromberg about her work experience, who's inspired her along the way, and the insights she's gleaned from centering her career on social justice. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/the-city-making-process-gets-focused-on-diversity-equity-inclusion-in-this-planners-work/ This episode is brought to you by Granicus

What is a feminist city? Who is a feminist city for? How do different groups of people experience the cities we live in now? And what does it all mean in a world inching toward recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic? Author Leslie Kern comes on the People Behind the Plans podcast series to untangle these questions with host Courtney Kashima, AICP. Leslie is the director of women and gender studies and an associate professor of geography and environment at Mount Allison University. Her latest book is Feminist City: Claiming Space in a Man-Made World. In it, she argues that cities have long been sites for grappling with social questions about how we live and relate to each other, and gender has been at the top of the list of those concerns. The two explore the myriad challenges women face living in and navigating spaces built largely for a narrow subset of the population, and they close their discussion by sharing tips for planners looking to increase gender equity in their urban — or regional, suburban, or rural — spheres. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/feminist-city-author-leslie-kern-on-envisioning-more-equitable-urban-spaces/

According to NASA, by 2028, urban air mobility is likely to be a commercially viable market for air metro services in the U.S. In addition, companies such as Amazon, UPS, or Walmart have been experimenting with drone deliveries in cities across the country. In this episode of the podcast, Petra Hurtado, APA’s research director, talks with Heather Sauceda Hannon, AICP, associate director of planning practice and scenario planning at the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy, and Ric Stephens, senior aviation planner at NV5, about why it is so important for planners to get involved in the discussions around this emerging transportation system. The three discuss what urban air mobility means, how it will impact cities and communities, and how planners can start preparing to ensure an equitable and sustainable implementation. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/why-planners-need-to-prepare-for-urban-air-mobility/ This podcast episode was produced in partnership with the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy.

In 2018, eruptions from the Kīlauea volcano caused widespread devastation to Hawaii's Big Island. It decimated more than 700 structures and uprooted more than 3,000 people. Resilience Roundtable host Jim Schwab, FAICP, talks with Douglas Le, AICP, disaster recovery officer with the ‎County of Hawaii, to learn about the particularities of volcanic eruptions — a natural hazard few planners deal with. Douglas explains their unique geological nature, but he also describes concerns of postdisaster recovery that will be familiar to planners everywhere, such as helping residents who lost their homes get access to the funding they need to rebuild. Guiding much of the county's recovery work is the Kīlauea Recovery and Resilience Plan, the overarching strategy that was released in late 2020 and features in Jim and Douglas's discussion. Throughout the conversation, Douglas underscores the balance that planners must strike to help provide immediate relief to residents while looking to the future, to make the entire community as strong as possible. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/planning-for-volcanic-activity-in-hawaii/

Urban planner, artist, and activist Katanya Raby joins host Courtney Kashima, AICP, to talk about her work at the Office of the Mayor for the City of Chicago, her time at the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), and her post as executive director of the Al Raby Foundation. The organization aims to educate communities about its namesake, Katanya's grandfather, and carry on his legacy of fighting for civil rights and equity for those who have been disenfranchised. The two planners also talk drone photography, using racial equity impact assessments in public-sector work, and how even young kids can grasp complex urban planning scenarios. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/katanya-raby-continues-equity-work-of-civil-rights-giant-al-raby/

Esther Greenhouse has a unique job title: built environmental strategist. She is also an environmental gerontologist, specializing in design for older adults, and she points out that the built environment often does not allow people of all ages and abilities to function at their highest level. For many, it limits functioning, which is a phenomenon known as environmental press. A big takeaway from that early work, she tells Meghan Stromberg, editor in chief of the American Planning Association, during their conversation, is that “a crucial problem that we have in our society is not understanding that the status quo of how we design and build is actually already for a subset of the population." She argues that we’re not thinking about these design limitations on a wide-enough scale or enacting changes quickly enough — a reality the pandemic has and will complicate in myriad ways. But she offers solutions, as well as eye-opening reasons why cities and towns must value their older citizens as much as they value younger adults.

Rodney Harrell, a planner and AARP Public Policy Institute's vice president of Family, Home and Community, thinks the biggest policy problem we face is the siloing of planning issues — separating housing from transportation from economic development from health. This disjointedness negatively affects people across the lifespan, but these impacts will become even more pronounced as our nation gets older. In fact, by 2035, the U.S. will have more people over the age of 65 than under the age of 18 for the first time ever. Thankfully, Rodney recognizes, planners are in a unique position to help solve many of these issues. He and APA's editor in chief Meghan Stromberg discuss where we go from here.

You've probably heard the term "multigenerational," but what about "intergenerational"? Matthew Kaplan, professor of Intergenerational Programs and Aging at Penn State University, outlines what that means for APA's editor in chief Meghan Stromberg, and the two discuss some of the fascinating case studies in intergenerational programming from around the world. Matt also describes how the pandemic has forced intergenerational planners and other professionals to come up with solutions for people who must stay physically distant — a challenging hurdle for a discipline rooted in interaction.

As a watershed year comes to a close, Tamika Butler, Esq., founder and principal of Tamika L. Butler Consulting, joins host Courtney Kashima, AICP, on this episode of the People Behind the Plans podcast series. The result is a stirring, uplifting, and funny conversation on the issues facing everyone who works to undo society’s inequities. Tamika’s practice focuses on the built environment, equity, antiracism, diversity and inclusion, organizational behavior, and change management. A transportation planner, lawyer, and nonprofit executive director in previous roles, she explains why she struck out on her own after the pandemic started. She and Courtney discuss the positives and negatives of working for yourself, as well as why it’s important for urban planning firms and other agencies to collaborate with each other. Both planners express their hopes for equity work going forward — that agencies and organizations understand that these endeavors cannot be done once and forgotten about. That engagement should be an ongoing priority rather than something done when the timing suits the organization. That those in positions of power recognize how easy it is to value people, and that firms become culturally specific, not just culturally competent. Tamika also shares her advice for planners looking to step into their power and put their antiracism ideals into practice.

When social justice planner Monique López, AICP, MCRP, MA, talks about her anti-racist, values-driven participatory planning and design firm called Pueblo Planning, she describes its work in no uncertain terms: “I still very much see this as an experiment in love … an experiment in justice. … And coming in with that particular mindset allows me to be flexible, allows me to be open-minded and open-hearted when I am held accountable by community members, when I am held accountable by, by social-justice movements that maybe say, You know, that planning process that we engaged in? It should have been done this way.” Pueblo Planning has done work with people who are unhoused, earn lower incomes, do not claim English as their first language, are senior, and are part of the LGBTQ community. Monique tells host Courtney Kashima, AICP, stories from some of Pueblo’s projects, merging anecdotes with the wisdom they brought her to create poignant takeaways for listeners. From divulging her planning “origin story” (in her early twenties, fighting a sewage sludge treatment plant that was threatening to come into her neighborhood), to musing on why Sherry Arnstein’s 1969 JAPA article on citizen participation is still relevant today, to revealing why Pueblo Planning couldn’t run headlong to the Zoom platform when the pandemic hit, Monique displays a passion for social justice that will inspire planners working in every sector.

The fiscal impacts of COVID-19 are forcing cities to significantly rethink their budgets and spending decisions. But when projected revenue shortfalls put most of the City of El Paso's scheduled capital improvement projects on hold, planners in this Texas border city saw an opportunity to rethink the capital improvement planning (CIP) and budgeting process and reprioritize projects using an equity-focused approach. To understand how they did this, Ann Dillemuth, AICP, senior research and professional practice associate at APA, speaks with Alex Hoffman, AICP, director of the Capital Planning Division of the city's Capital Improvement Department. Alex provides planners with practical advice on how to reenvision their own communities' capital improvements planning processes, and he underscores how identifying priorities and aligning plans can make a city more resilient in the future, if and when another disruptive event like the coronavirus pandemic happens.

When the coronavirus pandemic dramatically halted normal economic activity in March, many knew small business owners and their employees would not come away unscathed. But small businesses are critical to our communities, making up 44 percent of all economic activity in the United States. Thankfully, community planners are stepping up in big ways to find relief for these businesses — the lifeblood of their localities. In this episode of the podcast, APA public affairs manager Emily Pasi talks with Angela Cleveland, AICP, director of community and economic development for the City of Amesbury, Massachusetts, and Matthew Coogan, AICP, chief of staff for the City of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Amesbury and Newburyport — the former boasting a thriving restaurant scene, the latter an engine largely fueled by tourism — were each awarded $400,000 in emergency Community Development Block Grant funding via the CARES Act. Angela and Matt outline the serious need they saw in their communities’ small businesses before the funding was delivered, as well as the ways various city departments came together to lift up struggling enterprises and help them innovate. They provide advice for planners who want to help their communities not just stay solvent, but recover stronger.

What do natural disasters and the coronavirus pandemic have in common? Quite a bit, in fact. Medical anthropologist Dr. Monica Schoch-Spana joins host Jim Schwab, FAICP, on this episode of Resilience Roundtable series to talk about the commonalities between these two types of events. Dr. Schoch-Spana is a senior scholar with The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, as well as a senior scientist in the Department of Environmental Health & Engineering at The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

New York City's response to COVID-19 required unprecedented creativity and collaboration among its city agencies. Bob Tuttle, director of the New York City Department of City Planning’s Capital Planning Division, comes on the podcast to describe to Ann Dillemuth, AICP, senior research and professional practice associate, how the division was asked to use its datasets and knowledge of city facilities in the early days of the response to identify possible locations for surge hospitals. The conversation also delves into the capital planning team's work in general, which aims to integrate planning perspectives and data-driven planning analytics into the city’s capital budget planning and decision-making process. Bob describes a few of the resources the division offers, including the Facilities Explorer, a combination of more than 50 public datasets, and he points to department success stories, such as how one planner realized a police department intake site in the East New York neighborhood had the potential for something greater. After a multiyear, cross-agency effort, a youth center emerged — all because the team reviewed their extensive data sets, listened to community needs, and brought in the expertise of the full suite of the city's agencies.

COVID-19 has underscored yet another reality that planners already knew: Broadband access — or reliable, high-speed internet access — is a necessity, not a luxury. APA's Sagar Shah talks with Anna Read, an officer for the broadband research initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts, about the basics of the issue. Read clears up some common misconceptions about the digital divide and describes the work that several communities across the country are doing to close the broadband gap. The two also discuss how planners can get involved in local broadband processes and help shape requirements for access.

As cities around the world address COVID-19 challenges, they're reimagining how they use policy tools to meet the needs of their residents. In Portland, Oregon, the City Council recently adopted a resolution that highlights the connections between equity, climate, and COVID-19 recovery. APA's Jo Peña sits down with Andrea Durbin, the director of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, and Dr. Markisha Smith, director of Portland’s Office of Equity and Human Rights, to discuss the connection between the newly-adopted resolution and planning practice.

As a second-generation Australian and a globetrotter who's studied and worked in New York and Chicago, Samantha Choudhury understands how critical social bonds are to building communities that thrive. She and host Courtney Kashima, AICP, start off their conversation by examining how her parents' immigration to Australia from Bangladesh shaped how she plans for communities. The associate director at Brickfields Consulting and Mainstreet Australia boardmember offers up her observations of planning in the U.S. and Australia, especially the differences between each community's drive to get involved in the planning process. The two planners delve into the realms of placemaking and economic development, discussing how business-improvement districts need focused management to succeed — which, Sam notes, seems especially true now that both countries have been thrown into economic recessions brought about by coronavirus lockdowns. The Melbourne-based planner leaves listeners on a hopeful note, sharing the names of planners and community leaders doing work that inspires her.

The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging planners around the country to rethink how they work with various shelter-in-place and social distancing guidelines. One particular hurdle is how to continue with planning commission and other board meetings to keep communities moving forward. Emily Mack directs the Department of Metropolitan Development for the City of Indianapolis, Indiana. She chats with APA's Jo Peña about how, within a relatively short period of time, their team developed a standard operating procedure for the online meetings of their Metropolitan Development Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, and other governmental functions. Mack also outlines the many lessons they've learned along the way while maintaining these critical government services.

The Planning magazine editors get together — virtually — to recap some of the stories from the April 2020 issue. First up are drive-thrus: In the article "Is Fast-Food Through With Drive-Thrus?" author Brian Barth talks about how good urban design and walkability just don't favor the car-centric fast food model anymore. But last month states and cities started closing bars and restaurants, limiting food options to takeout, delivery, and, of course, the drive-thru. All of a sudden, drive-thrus seem more relevant than ever. The editors also discuss how e-commerce affects land use and infrastructure planning, as well as coding and how planners are using it to make sense of the vast amount of data that's out there, but also to solve critical planning challenges.

Boston is currently a hot spot for the new coronavirus. Like many municipalities across the country, it's taking unprecedented action to respond to the challenges brought about by the pandemic. Brian Golden, director of the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA), joins APA's Roberta Rewers to discuss many of these tactics, including new responsibilities taken on by the city's planning staff. Last month, the city partnered with the McChrystal Group — consultants who specialize in strategic remote crisis management — to review the city’s preparedness for emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic. Golden explains the motivation behind their decision to seek out external assistance, and he breaks down exactly how the consultants helped the city structure their approach to the public health crisis during the last few weeks. Through this eye-opening discussion, planners and other city officials will learn best practices for strategic crisis management, and they'll get an insider look into one major city's operational pivot while dealing with a crisis of global proportions.

With millions across the country now working remotely to curb the spread of COVID-19, cybersecurity and data protection issues are top of mind for just about everyone. Phishing attacks have increased. The term "Zoom bombing" has entered the lexicon. What should planners do to make sure their agency's data and communications are safe? APA's Jo Peña talks with Nupur Gunjan, a public sector analyst at Cisco. Nupur is a trained planner who transitioned to the tech world after working for the City of Austin, Texas. Her experience with local planning and tech uniquely positions her to share advice with communities who are using online engagement tools. The two focus on what planners need to know about data protection and online public engagement right now, but also what they can do to protect their communities in the future.

This episode features a dynamic conversation between Planning magazine editor-in-chief Meghan Stromberg and Lisa Nisenson, vice president for new mobility and connected communities at WGI. The two discuss what e-commerce trends mean for land use and contactless delivery; they also review the major implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for online retail.

Hear from Matt Hoffman, immediate Past Chair of the Fayetteville, Arkansas, Planning Commission, about how the city continued — virtually — with its planning commission and other board meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode of the podcast series Cover to Cover, the Planning magazine editors review the contents of the March 2020 issue: from an interactive map from the US Department of Transportation that shows the linkages between transportation and the new Federal Opportunity Zones program, to the steps it takes to prepare a community for large-scale solar development, to a special "business of planning" article, with 13 strategies for becoming an effective manager. Before the editors dive in to their discussion, editor-in-chief Meghan Stromberg reflects on the state of the world amid the COVID-19 pandemic. This lens casts a new, even-more-pressing light on her discussion with Ward Lyles, AICP, and Stacey Swearingen White, about their research into emotions in planning. Swearingen White is a professor at the University of Kansas, as well as the director of the School of Public Affairs and Administration, and Lyles is an associate professor at the university, in the School of Public Affairs and Administration. He also serves as director of the Center for Compassionate and Sustainable Communities at KU. The three explore the trope of "planner as technician" and how bringing emotional intelligence into planning can have a major impact on how planners work — something that matters now more than ever in the wake of our current public health crisis.

In this episode of People Behind the Plans, host Courtney Kashima, AICP, catches up with Traci Sanders of WXY Studio in New York. Traci serves as the director of civic impact for the multidisciplinary architecture, design, and planning firm. She and Courtney start off by exploring how Traci discovered the field of urban planning — the seed was planted during high school, when she split her time between the South and North Sides of Chicago and noticed the stark inequities between them. Traci describes how her work trajectory changed after graduating from NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service, eventually leading her to a job with New York City Councilmember Melissa Mark-Viverito and involvement in the East Harlem Neighborhood Plan. Both Traci and Courtney share their thoughts on how certain urban planning spheres view public versus private backgrounds, and they muse on issues like the public dimension of design and why a community engagement process should be tailored to every client.

In this episode of the APA Podcast, the Planning magazine editors sit down to recap the urban planning trends and ideas from the February 2020 issue. Featured topics this month include public transit's gender gap (and how to close it), the Texas Freedom Colonies Project, user-centered planning, and the rise of nighttime mayors.

In this episode of the Resilience Roundtable podcast series, host Jim Schwab, FAICP, speaks with Julie Dennis of OVID Solutions about her experiences working as both an independent disaster-recovery consultant and as a previous director of community development for the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Julie's vast experience in Florida saw her working in the Florida Keys when Hurricane Irma hit; she says that the department's focus on relationship building in the region helped enormously to lay the groundwork for assisting post-disaster and guiding redevelopment. The conversation shifts into the personal when Julie shares her experiences with Hurricane Michael, which destroyed her parents' and other family members' homes in another part of the state: the Florida Panhandle. Listeners hear not just about the harsh reality of surviving in a post-disaster environment but also about the moving displays of cooperation that Julie witnessed again and again after the event. Julie and Jim discuss the work she's focusing on now, including guiding some communities in the Panhandle in their first-time planning work. Throughout the episode, Julie shares invaluable insights from working in a state that's on the nation's frontlines of disaster-recovery planning.

This episode of the People Behind the Plans podcast series introduces listeners to CMAP executive director Erin Aleman, the first woman and first planner to head up the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Erin knows about the challenges inherent in working in large jurisdictions, but she’s learned from her work that small actions can have a big impact. She and host Courtney Kashima, AICP, get into the nitty-gritty of urban planning: how CMAP’s local technical assistance (LTA) program came to be and how it focuses not just on transportation but also housing; how the organization's On to 2050 Plan revolves around three core principles: inclusive growth, resilience, and prioritized investment. They zoom out from talking about the technicalities of planning to explore how an influential college experience taught Erin to approach all residents from a place of respect — a lesson she carries with her even today.

Welcome to Cover to Cover, a new series giving planners an insider look into the stories in APA’s Planning magazine. Each month editor Meghan Stromberg and associate editors Mary Hammon and Lindsay Nieman dive deeper into the topics covered in Planning. They introduce listeners to some of the contributors and other voices in its pages, talk about how it all came together, and otherwise give us the story behind the story. This month’s episode focuses on all things planning in Houston: increased resiliency efforts following Hurricane Harvey, a major transit bond measure, a new innovation corridor, and more. Planning writer Bill Fulton, director of the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University in Houston, weighs in on H-Town’s famous lack of zoning — he argues that the city still uses important planning tools in guiding development. The editors also provide a preview of the upcoming February issue, including articles on gender mainstreaming and the rise of “night mayors.”

Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017. Maria, the more destructive of the two, devastated the island in myriad ways. It wiped out Puerto Rico's electrical grid, leaving 3 million people without power — the biggest outage in U.S. history. It caused $100 billion in damage, and recent estimates from Harvard University, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, put the number of fatalities at 2,975. After the disaster, Professor Ivis Garcia Zambrana, AICP, PhD, went back to the island she grew up on to help create long-term planning partnerships that would lead to a more resilient Puerto Rico. In this episode of Resilience Roundtable, she sits down with host Jim Schwab, FAICP, to provide a context for how vulnerable Puerto Rico was before the storms: its government was more than $70 billion in debt and its failing electrical grid was already causing blackouts. Garcia Zambrana details the aftermath of the storm, but she also tells Schwab about the planning work that happened — and continues to happen — post-Maria. Several plans were culled into one, and a fiscal plan was put together. The two planners discuss the positive developments happening on the ground, such as how the community resilience program strengthens towns by granting funds to local planning organizations, but also where work still needs to be done to get into step with the new economic and disaster recovery plan. Their nuanced discussion paints a portrait of a complex situation: one in which great strides in rebuilding and recovery have been made, but great strides in hazard mitigation still need to happen.

In a two-part episode, Bill Siembieda, AICP, PhD, talks with Butte County, California, planning staff about the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire — one of the deadliest and costliest wildfires in the state's history, with 85 casualties and more than 50,000 people evacuated from their homes. Part II of these conversations features Tim Snellings, director of development services for Butte County. Tim details the logistics of the cleanup process, and the two planners discuss how the town of Paradise, which was hardest hit by the disaster, might replan their community. Tim outlines some of the ways county staff might get creative with incentives and programs as they make updates to their general plan. He also underscores the challenges facing communities in the area and how urgent the need is for every jurisdiction facing these realities to update their plan now. [It's] essential that you be prepared for the disaster that's coming, that you don't shortcut on your general plan ... You're thinking that, “Oh, we'll get to it someday.” You need to get to it now. You need to find funding now to update your safety elements and do your hazard mitigation planning now. — Tim Snellings, Director of Development Services, Butte County (California) Bill Siembieda, AICP, PhD, is professor of city and regional planning at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

In a two-part episode, Bill Siembieda, AICP, PhD, talks with Butte County, California, planning staff about the aftermath of the 2018 Camp Fire — one of the deadliest and costliest wildfires in the state's history, with 85 casualties and more than 50,000 people evacuated from their homes. Part I of these conversations features Dan Breedon, AICP, principal planner for Butte County. Dan describes how people throughout the county had a dire need for temporary housing the very day the fire began on November 8, 2018; he also talks about how the creation of an urgency ordinance became paramount. Dan explains why the specific topography of the area added to their challenges, as well as what the most critical land-use issues are now that the disaster has occurred. Ultimately, listeners learn about how, in the wake of this disaster, local agencies are focusing on improving resilience and adopting better land-use policies, not simply on maintaining a swift response strategy. Bill Siembieda, AICP, PhD, is professor of city and regional planning at California Polytechnic State University in San Luis Obispo.

Certain concepts in the planning sphere can be hard to make tangible for residents, but property taxes is not one of them. Kelwin Harris knows this reality well. As the director of outreach and engagement for the Office of the Cook County Assessor — which is responsible for valuing 1.8 million properties for tax purposes in and around Chicago — he and his team have been eagerly getting out the word that the the office, with all its political baggage, is changing. It’s committed to transparency and efficiency, including seeking better, more accurate data through SB1379, or the Data Modernization Bill, which would eventually reduce the backlog of appeals currently burdening the system. Before he went to work for the Office of the Assessor, Kelwin worked in various capacities at the city and regional levels and in grassroots neighborhood economic development. He is a former senior outreach planner for the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP), and prior to CMAP, he worked on Chicago’s South Side in the Auburn-Gresham neighborhood as director of social services with St. Sabina Church and Catholic Charities. He held numerous roles in this community, directing programs and interventions to improve job skills, address food insecurity, combat violence, expose youth to colleges, and provide financial assistance for thousands of residents. He even served the City of Chicago as assistant to Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley and acting chief of human infrastructure. Many lessons he learned in his previous roles and through his previous experiences make their way into his conversation with podcast host Courtney Kashima, AICP: how communities get the development they actually want, why the South Side of Chicago is far more multifaceted than its media portrayal, and how the Wu-Tang Clan helped a young Kelwin plug in to the world beyond his window.

What do you do when you’re an urban planner who loves comics? If you’re Todd Vanadilok, AICP, you create your own planning-themed comic series. The small-business owner launched an online comic this spring that explores issues of social justice through a planning lens. His central characters — Emie, an egret, and Ollie, an ox — come from his firm’s name, Egret+Ox Planning. The two animals spoke to Todd because of their symbiotic relationship — one that resembles the ideal planning process, wherein seemingly disparate groups or individuals work together to achieve a common goal. Todd and People Behind the Plans series host Courtney Kashima, AICP, take a detailed look at Todd’s background: He majored in engineering at Northwestern University but decided that he wanted to study urban planning, so he attended graduate school at the University of Michigan. After 16 years working at Teska Associates in Evanston, Illinois, he and his family moved to Colorado, where the communities he plans for are as unique as the ones he knew in and around Chicago. Courtney and Todd discuss how planning processes cannot be “one size fits all” but must be well-tailored to the specific community — urban or rural — a planner is working in. They talk about giving back to the profession and even the legacy of Roberto Clemente, the late baseball legend who also made strides in the realm of social justice.

How well do the people in your area know their neighbors? Enessa Janes, AICP, PhD, considers it one of the most important questions for communities to ask when preparing for a disaster. The community resilience coordinator for the City of Arvada, Colorado, explains that during large events, police officers and fire departments may not be able to get to residents quickly. Knowing those who live nearby ensures that residents have a bigger safety net. Janes and host Courtney Kashima, AICP, break down some of the terms that resilience officers use to describe hazards, like "shocks" and "stresses." They explore the important work taking place at the City of Arvada around resilience, including its Resilience Neighborhoods program and the way staff have woven concepts of resilience throughout the new six-year strategic plan. Janes shares her educational and professional background and describes what motivated her to become involved in resilience work: a passion for the environment, conservation, and social equity.

In 2017, San Francisco designated six blocks of the Tenderloin neighborhood as the Compton’s Transgender Cultural District. In the first episode of APA’s podcast series No Small Stories, host Lindsay Nieman and producer Kelly Wilson visit the area to learn about how it’s fighting gentrification and displacement, encouraging the city to rethink its approach to historical preservation, and creating a safe, economically productive home for the city’s transgender community. In their own words, district cofounders Aria Sa’id and Honey Mahogany describe the challenges and successes in launching the world’s first ever transgender cultural district. Listeners also hear from transgender activist Felicia Elizondo, San Francisco Planning Department senior planner Shelley Caltagirone, and Carolina Morales, legislative director to Supervisor Hillary Ronen. Each person's perspective adds critical context and depth to a fascinating planning story.

Julie Burros sees arts and culture not only as an end in itself but also as a way planners can solve intractable problems. Throughout her career, she's helped governments leverage experimental, artist-designed projects: there was taiko drumming with seniors through a dangerous Boston intersection and outfitting a City of Boston FleetHub vehicle with comments from a public meeting. “Artists can really think of things that aren’t in the typical planner’s toolbox and help push planners to be more innovative ...” —Julie Burros, principal cultural planner, Metris Arts Consulting The principal cultural planner at Metris Arts Consulting speaks with People Behind the Plans host Courtney Kashima, AICP, about all things cultural planning, and they use Julie's "Cultural Planning Manifesto" as a jumping-off point for their conversation. She covers the breadth of what goes into a cultural plan, including arts education, support for individual artists, and health of the economy and job creation. The document discusses the physical look and character of a city, of course, but it also addresses how to make art part of the infrastructure in the public realm, as well as how to incorporate arts and culture in affordable housing, climate change, transportation, and other areas. She discusses her experiences working in Chicago, Boston, and Easton, Pennsylvania, with her stints in Chicago and Boston seeing her create and implement those cities' cultural plans. Julie and Courtney delve deeper into the idea of culture as infrastructure — in other words, a basic human need. She argues that cultural planning is a way to investigate issues of deep, systemic inequities and give people hope.

By his estimation, Donald Shoup, FAICP, thinks about parking more than anybody else. That seems plausible, as he's been a longtime advocate for progressive parking policy. In fact, his ideas have spread so widely that not only does he have fans, but they even have a nickname for themselves: "Shoupistas." Don is a Distinguished Research Professor in the Department of Urban Planning at UCLA, author of the seminal High Cost of Free Parking, and editor of the recent Parking and the City. He chats with host Courtney Kashima, AICP, about how he got into the transportation subfield and how, throughout his career, he has tried to further equitable policies and correct market and government failures when it comes to parking. He describes his basic thesis from The High Cost of Free Parking, which is that cities should (1) get rid of all minimum parking requirements, (2) charge demand-based prices for on-street parking, and (3) spend the revenue to pay for public services in the metered neighborhood. He and Courtney discuss those tenets as well as new parking-payment technologies, the growing need to better manage curb space, and even a bit of Roman history, all with Don's trademark passion and humor.

The idea of increasing density in a neighborhood is frequently an off-putting concept for residents, but Dan Parolek has a solution: the "missing middle." He coined the term in 2010 to identify a range of housing types that provide more dwelling units than a single-family home but fewer than a midrise apartment building. These missing middle housing types—duplexes, fourplexes, cottage courts, and more—increase density while still keeping with the scale and character of a neighborhood. His firm, Opticos Design, helps communities implement form-based coding to allow for these structures. Dan shares the firm's ideas and work with host Courtney Kashima, AICP, including a project in South Bend, Indiana, that tackles the issue of one neighborhood's 500 vacant lots and how to build on them. He stresses the need for a foundation of physical design within planning—without turning planners into designers. Courtney and Dan also explore his career path: He started as an architect but quickly realized he wanted to earn a graduate degree in urban design. After being told by several firms that he needed to choose one discipline or the other, he founded Opticos—a creative maneuver that allowed him the freedom to work on his dual passions.

During NPC19 in San Francisco, host Courtney Kashima, AICP, sat down with John Rahaim, the city and county's planning director. On the table during their conversation are issues the city's grappling with now, from the housing crisis and homelessness to design review and short-term rentals. John divulges the route he took to his current position — he grew up in Detroit, got plugged in to planning in Pittsburgh, and eventually made a move to the West Coast. The two unpack the phenomenon of highly visible planning leaders, the growing pains San Francisco experienced in dealing with Airbnb, and the importance of the Citywide LGBTQ+ Cultural Heritage Strategy. Through concrete examples of actions the department has taken in its work, John underscores the need for planners to experiment with the programs and policies they develop.

How livable is your community? The AARP Livability Index sets out to tell residents just that, based on ratings in several categories: housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement, and opportunity. First launched in 2015, it was comprehensively updated in 2018. As senior strategic policy advisor with AARP Public Policy Institute’s Livable Communities team, Jana Lynott, AICP, was responsible for its development. She and host Courtney Kashima, AICP, talk about how the index is being used as a tool, but they also delve in to other areas of Jana's work, such as mobility as a service (MaaS), or universal mobility as a service. Most of the focus in transportation planning has been on how we move around cars, but universal mobility as a service looks at how we can best move around people. The two also discuss the language we use to talk about aging and why planners need to think about how the built environment affects people of all abilities.

The City of Vancouver, British Columbia, has a lot to brag about. City manager Sadhu Johnston knows that many of its successes are due to smart, collaborative planning, such as the work the city did to get car trips to the current rate of 45 percent of all trips, down from 90 percent in the 1970s. There’s the Greenest City 2020 Action Plan, which Sadhu helped implement when he started in Vancouver; the plan seeks to set Vancouver apart as a global leader in sustainability efforts. It aims to reduce carbon emissions, add green jobs, and reverse urban tree canopy loss, among many other items. But the city is also grappling with serious issues, such as the housing and opioid crises. Sadhu tells host Courtney Kashima, AICP, that the current average home price in Vancouver stands at $1.5 million. But the city council is taking action. Among the ground-breaking solutions they've implemented to stem the tide of rising housing costs are building modular housing — which take only three months to erect — and implementing an empty homes tax. Courtney and Sadhu also discuss his time in Chicago, where he worked on the Chicago Climate Action Plan and helmed the Department of Environment, and before that, his time in Cleveland, where he worked with the Cleveland Green Building Coalition.

Pete Parkinson’s planning career has spanned not only decades but also various California counties. As a result, he’s familiar with a wide range of hazards. In the fourth episode of the APA Podcast series Resilience Roundtable, he and host Rich Roths, AICP, discuss many of them, including earthquakes, floods, landslides, and wildfires. Pete unfortunately has a very personal experience dealing with the latter, as he and his family lost their home in October 2017 when multiple fires tore through Sonoma County, as well as Lake, Napa, Mendocino, and Solano counties. His story focuses on the Tubbs Fire, which began in Calistoga but spread into Santa Rosa, even jumping Highway 101 in the process. It destroyed the Coffey Park neighborhood and ultimately the Santa Rosa mobile home park where Pete's mother-in-law lived. (The Tubbs Fire is now the second-most destructive fire in California history after the November 2018 Camp Fire, which caused 85 deaths and destroyed 18,804 structures in Butte County.) Pete is now working as a consultant on the new multifamily development at the site of the former mobile home park. The veteran planner ends his heartrending account by sharing the life-saving lessons he learned during and after the experience.

Trevor Dick, AICP, hates dry planning events. That means whenever he's involved in a National Planning Conference session — like the always popular Fast, Funny, and Passionate series — or an APA Illinois Chapter conference event, he makes things fun by using some ... unexpected tactics. Trevor and host Courtney Kashima, AICP, bring the same kind of lively spirit to this episode of People Behind the Plans. Not only does Trevor divulge some of his off-the-wall presentation antics, he also reveals his favorite planning references in pop culture and regales Courtney with stories of public meetings gone awry. The two switch gears to discuss the exciting developments underway in Aurora, Illinois, where Trevor is Director of Development Strategy and Facilitation. Currently one of the city's big projects is revitalizing the Fox Valley Mall, which sits squarely within the Route 59 commercial corridor, the second biggest retail hub in the state after Chicago's Michigan Avenue. Trevor also talks about the city's plan to create a downtown International Marketplace District and how it will serve as an inclusive space for all residents. He goes on to praise the diversity of the city's workforce, as well as his staff's efforts to ensure that every resident's voice is heard as they work to make positive change in the city.

In the third episode of the APA Podcast series Resilience Roundtable, host Rich Roths, AICP, talks with community planner Jack Heide, AICP CFM, and Lieutenant Emily Ussery, PhD, about the impact of Hurricanes Irma and Maria on the US Virgin Islands. The two discuss their unique reasons for working in the region, how combining their expertise led to a more comprehensive recovery effort, and the lessons they took away from their first disaster response and recovery experience. Emily is an epidemiologist with the Physical Activity and Health Branch of the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She is also a lieutenant with the US Public Health Service. Jack works as a planner for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in Region II.

The Great Lakes hold 20 percent of the world's supply of surface freshwater. When urban planner Josina Morita moved from California, where a mentality of scarcity around water dominates, to Chicago, where the opposite is true, it got her thinking: How can we be good stewards of the Great Lakes, one of our most precious natural resources? How can we keep ourselves accountable to the rest of the country and the world? Josina now serves as Commissioner of the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago (MWRD), which manages stormwater and sewer water for Cook County, Illinois. But the organization also sees themselves as an environmental agency, and they pilot exciting new green technologies at many of their plants. Josina describes several of them in the episode and the promising ways they're advancing the industry, saying, "The last thing anybody thinks about is drinking their own sewer water, but the technology is there, and water is becoming its own renewable resource." She and Courtney also discuss how budgets are a reflection of a community's values, why taxes make all the difference in a community's infrastructure, as well as Josina's passion for racial equity and making sure everyone has a seat at the table.

During her upbringing in Detroit, Nina Idemudia, AICP, thought a lot about how the built environment influenced her life. She went on to discover planning during her studies at the University of Michigan, and she knew it would be the framework she'd use to instill lasting change in the world. Currently Nina works as a city planning associate with the City of Los Angeles Planning Department, and she serves as the Young Planners Group coordinator for the APA California Chapter. Nina shares her passion for community engagement with listeners, talking about the sometimes surprising roadblocks that prevent residents from participating in the planning process and the simple ways planners can address these problems. Throughout the entirety of this lively conversation, she underscores how dire it is that planners make equity the bedrock of everything they do — and why it's OK to ask for help in this area.

In the second episode of the APA Podcast series Resilience Roundtable, Kim Mickelson, AICP, joins host Rich Roths, AICP, to discuss Hurricane Harvey from her perspective as an attorney from the City of Houston Planning Department. The storm hit during her first week on the job, and it compelled city officials to approve a new hazard-mitigation action plan in March 2018. Kim talks about how having their third 500-year — or greater — storm in 18 months made them take a second look at their floodplain regulations, including elevation requirements for new construction, and their infrastructure design standards. She reviews the more challenging, Houston-specific aspects of the cleanup process and how she immediately thought to engage the services of APA’s Community Planning Assistance Team once the storm had passed.

In the new APA Podcast series, Resilience Roundtable, host Rich Roths, AICP, talks with planners and allied professionals who make resilience their mission, even in the face of devastating natural hazards. Rich is a senior hazard planner for Burton Planning Service of Columbus, Ohio. Previously he worked for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), where he was in charge of coordinating all mitigation planning activities for the six states in Region V. Rich is also a member of APA's Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Recovery Planning Division. The first episode features John Henneberger, an expert on low-income housing issues, a 2014 MacArthur Fellow, and the codirector of Texas Housers, a nonprofit that advocates for equitable disaster recovery policy and practices. John describes his affordable housing and community development background and how, when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita descended on the Gulf Coast in 2005, he became quickly aware of the exaggerated impact on low-income neighborhoods of color. He describes Hurricane Harvey’s specific toll on Houston and the surrounding area and how cyclical these disasters can seem, as many of the neighborhoods his organization works in have identical characteristics to what they saw in the Lower Ninth Ward after Katrina, such as an aging housing stock and inadequate or nonexistent public infrastructure. John talks about the innovative ways disaster recovery needs are being met in various Texas counties, spotlighting the system RAPIDO, a temporary-to-permanent housing model that gives owners of the property more control over the rebuilding process. Again and again throughout the discussion, John argues that good planning practice and equity are inextricably linked, and giving disaster survivors a sense of agency is one of the most important things planners can do for affected individuals.

What is mobility? It’s simply the ability to get somewhere, says Mark de la Vergne, chief of mobility innovation for the Mayor’s Office in Detroit. But when it manifests in the real world, this essential facet inevitably presents challenges for all types of cities, from New York to Austin to Seattle. In Detroit’s case, those challenges have been built up over years of policy decisions, but Mark’s job is to alleviate pain points by bringing in new technologies and services. In the last year, the city has embarked on a series of innovative pilot projects revolving around transportation solutions, such as bringing more car-share vehicles to Detroit's neighborhoods so residents living beyond the city's core have alternatives to car ownership. His big-vision goals include improving existing and adding new connected technologies to the city's infrastructure — not to drum up hype but to actually address safety and operational issues. Mark names empathy as a crucial aspect of his work, because knowing what kinds of frictions exist for different people around the city is key to serving all Detroiters.

Resilience, civic infrastructure, participatory design — these topics and more play important roles in the work of Taryn Sabia. Taryn is the director of the Florida Center for Community Design and Research at the University of South Florida's School of Architecture and Community Design, where she's also a research associate professor. In a wide-ranging conversation with host Courtney Kashima, AICP, she talks about why planners must encourage the development of a civic infrastructure in their communities — and how they can do that. Taryn discusses the Mayors' Institute on City Design, which she hosted in 2014 and 2017 and gives city officials the opportunity to work with planners, architects, and designers on tough development challenges in their cities. In reflecting on the interdisciplinary nature of her work, she underscores the need for allied professions to come together on resiliency issues — such as building erosion due to saltwater inundation — as many Florida communities grapple with these realities on a daily basis.

New Orleans’s City Park claims some impressive titles: At 1,300 acres, it’s the largest regional park in Louisiana, and it ranks as the most visited park in the state at nearly 15 million visits per year. But that wasn’t the case 13 years ago, when Hurricane Katrina hit on August 29, 2005, and devastated the city — including that well-loved civic space. For this special episode of People Behind the Plans, recorded in New Orleans at the National Planning Conference earlier this year, Courtney hears from Bob Becker, FAICP, CEO of City Park and an adjunct professor at the University of New Orleans. During the first half of the episode, Courtney and Bob look back on the effect of Hurricane Katrina on the park — every building damaged, 2,000 trees destroyed, and 90 percent of its funding gone overnight. Just five months before the storm hit, the organization finished devising a new master plan for the space, and Bob stresses how important that document was for charting a course forward during the recovery effort. (In fact, their work was recognized with a 2010 National Planning Excellence Award for a Hard-Won Victory.) During the second half of the episode, Bob talks about his career trajectory, including how he ended up doing planning work in Kuala Kencana, a company town in Papua, Indonesia, and how he finished a PhD program at a later-than-typical point in his career.

In this episode, Jennifer and Kelley pick Lisa Nisenson’s brain to find out why the founder of the startup Greater Places and advisor to Alta Planning + Design thinks scenario planning is crucial to designing the autonomous future. Nisenson explains what scenario planning actually is, how it became an essential part of a planner’s toolbox, and how it really works in the context of automation. She mentions notable people working in the field and the tools they’re developing (but she also argues for putting the tools away so as to not limit our thinking). Throughout the conversation, Nisenson makes the case for integrating this framework into planning for the autonomous future.

Kate Hartley laughs when talking about what could have been if she had chased a career in legal history, the academic path she started out on while at the University of California, Berkeley. But after taking a couple urban planning classes on a whim, she never looked back. Nowadays, Kate focuses on all things housing as the director of the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development (MOHCD) in San Francisco. She and Courtney discuss how the Affordable Housing Bonus Program leverages incentives to create affordable housing and why it's so difficult to deliver units for middle-income households in the city. Kate praises the Mission Action Plan 2020, which focuses on decelerating the rate of eviction and displacement in the famed neighborhood. She talks about the challenges inherent in her work but also projects from other cities that inspire her, such as Vancouver's investment in modular housing for homeless households.

Courtney welcomes to the podcast Greg Lindsay, who visited Chicago in March for the 2018 National Shared Mobility Summit, and the two grapple with how developments in technology are radically changing cities and affecting the work planners do across the country. As a journalist, urbanist, futurist, and speaker, Greg thinks constantly about cities, and he argues that we've chosen to make living in the dense urban core a luxury good. Greg is also a senior fellow at NewCities and the director of strategy of its offshoot LA CoMotion — an annual urban mobility festival in the Arts District of Los Angeles — as well as the coauthor of the book Aerotropolis: The Way We'll Live Next, which Courtney and Greg discuss. The phenomenon of co-working and co-living spaces, tactical urbanism, and the equity implications of certain technologies also make their way into this dynamic conversation.

Jennifer and Kelley sit down with Rebecca Hunter of Crown Castle and John Estrada of eTrans Systems to break down exactly how infrastructure relates to autonomous vehicles. Rebecca explains why connectivity requires a wireless and wired network, how densification of infrastructure will affect traffic safety, and why the comprehensive plan should address these issues. John delves in to the various technologies being used in the field, like LiDAR (which stands for "Light, Detection, And Ranging”) and haptic systems, and which cities around the U.S. are seeing some of these tools in action.

Mitchell Silver, FAICP, thinks parks are more than just islands of green spaces — much, much more. As Commissioner of the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation, Mitch makes it his mission to understand how people use these critical urban spaces, and he aims to ensure that children, adults, seniors, and everyone in between have access to a quality 21st-century park system. Courtney caught up with Mitch during the 2018 National Planning Conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, and the two discussed not only how he was shaped by a childhood spent blocks away from Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, but also how seriously he takes public engagement when working with residents on park projects. He touches on some of the initiatives under way in his department and highlights a few of the less well-known examples of park success stories in New York City, including St. Mary's Park in the Bronx and Highbridge Park, home to the city’s oldest standing bridge. Mitch reflects on his time in Raleigh, North Carolina, where he served as Chief Planning & Development Officer and Planning Director and sought to encourage growth in a community once hesitant to change. He also shares his views on equity, which he defines simply as fairness, in a bid to eliminate the jargon planners can sometimes employ when discussing the subject.

In this episode of People Behind the Plans, Courtney talks with Kristin Saunders, principal transportation planner with the City of Pittsburgh’s Department of Mobility & Infrastructure. They discuss the new department’s five ambitious goals relating to safety, access, reliability, affordability, and engagement. They cover Kristin’s work on the city’s bike plan and the City Steps Assessment, which aims to understand how each one of Pittsburgh’s 800 public staircases fit into the pedestrian network. The two even tackle the commotion surrounding Pittsburgh Steelers’ player JuJu Smith-Schuster and his stolen bicycle, which saw the city come together in support of finding the athlete's primary mode of transportation.

In the third episode of the APA Podcast series Planning the Autonomous Future, hosts Jennifer Henaghan and Kelley Coyner take stock of multiple autonomous-vehicle-focused sessions from the 2018 National Shared Mobility Summit, which took place March 12–14 in Chicago. Later on in the episode, they welcome Jeff Tumlin, principal and director of strategy at ‎Nelson\Nygaard, to the table. Jeff moderated the summit plenary session called "The (Shared) Road Ahead: An Electrified, Connected, Autonomous, and Accessible Vision of Transit," and he discussed the topic with Jennifer and Kelley, touching on what could happen if autonomous vehicles aren't shared, why we need to prioritize space-efficient modes of transportation for AVs to work, and why planners need to take sprawl seriously when planning for automated vehicles.

In the ninth episode of the People Behind the Plans series, transit planner and author Jarrett Walker offers up his thoughts and musings on all things transit. Jarrett reflects on growing up in Portland in the 1970s, a revolutionary period in the city's history. He describes how his firm, Jarrett Walker + Associates, helps cities and regions think about public transit (hint: they aim not to make recommendations but to help each client clarify their own values and priorities). Courtney and Jarrett discuss his book, Human Transit: How Clearer Thinking About Public Transit Can Enrich Our Communities and Our Lives, and they delve into the role of the private sector in transit operations. They close out their conversation with a discussion of elite projection, the idea that what a wealthy person might want for his or her city might not be the best thing for the majority of its people.

In the second episode of the APA Podcast series Planning the Autonomous Future, hosts Jennifer Henaghan and Kelley Coyner hear about the ins and outs of conducting autonomous vehicle pilot projects from Corey Clothier, a principal at Mobility e3. Corey talks about his involvement in the first automated vehicle (AV) pilot in the United States — a project called Applied Robotics for Installations and Base Operations (ARIBO), which changed the way that soldiers involved with Wounded Warriors at North Carolina’s Fort Bragg Army Base traveled to their medical appointments. Corey also discusses the quickly changing landscape of AV pilots across the country and divulges what steps communities should follow when considering an autonomous vehicle pilot. Later on in the episode, the three talk autonomous vehicle design and what types of eye-catching looks vehicle makers are coming up with.

Series host Courtney Kashima, AICP, sits down with Doug Farr, a founding principle and president of Farr Associates and the author of Sustainable Nation: Urban Design Patterns for the Future. He and Courtney discuss the book's unique approach to creating and improving neighborhoods. They also consider how Doug's hometown of Detroit influenced him in his career trajectory, why equity is crucial in the planning process, and how planners use language in crafting plans and defining outcomes.

"Planning the Autonomous Future" is a new podcast series from APA. The series explores the many ways in which autonomous vehicle (AV) technology will impact cities and regions, mobility, and the planning profession. In this episode, host Jennifer Henaghan, AICP — APA's deputy research director and Green Communities Center manager — and cohost Kelley Coyner — CEO of Mobility e3, a transportation leadership firm that helps communities plan, pilot, and deploy AV fleets — provide an introduction to AVs and explain why every community needs to be paying attention to them.

In this episode of People Behind the Plans, Courtney Kashima, AICP, interviews Joanna Trotter, Senior Program Officer for Economic and Community Development at the Chicago Community Trust. The conversation touches on the organization's work funding community initiatives, how that has shaped her view of the profession, the issues and challenges she believes face planners in the future, and more.

Courtney Kashima, AICP, interviews Eugenie Birch, FAICP in this special World Town Planning Day edition of the "People Behind the Plans" podcast series.

In this episode of People Behind the Plans, Courtney Kashima, AICP talks with Lynn Ross, AICP, Founder of Spirit for Change Consulting. Lynn discusses how she discovered the field of urban planning, equity in the planning profession, her work with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Knight Foundation, and much more.

In this episode, Courtney Kashima, AICP, talks with Bev Wilson, AICP, Associate Professor at University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, Department of Urban and Regional Planning. Their wide ranging conversation includes consideration of new frameworks for civic technology. They touch on how planners can think about extending the scope of tech tools to include planning issues such as equity, vulnerability, and the connection between rural and urban planning. Whether in virtual or in person space planners have the tools to lead the collaboration for the public good.

The Green Streets program is an initiative in Lawrence, Massachusetts with a goal of increasing vital tree cover throughout the community. Through collaboration between Groundwork Lawrence, APA's Sustainable Communities Division, and the Massachusetts chapter of the American Planning Association, the Green Streets program was the focus of a detailed and comprehensive Health Impact Assessment or HIA. In this episode, Jennifer Henaghan, AICP, Deputy Research Director and Manager of APA's Green Communities Center, interviews Angela Vincent, AICP, Economic Development Planner with the Merrimack Valley Planning Commission, and member of APA's Sustainable Communities Division; Brad Buschur, Project Director with Groundwork Lawrence; and Neil Angus, AICP, CEP, Environmental Planner with Devons Enterprise Commission, and also a member of APA's Sutainable Communities Division.

In this episode, Courtney Kashima, AICP, talks with Scott Page, founder of Interface Studio in Philadelphia and a leader in developing unique and innovative urban design ideas. The pair discusses who’s driving the changes that are shaping cities, the influences of partnership, “unintended consequences,” and the inspiration that comes from the conversation around public works.

In the second episode of the People Behind the Plans series, Courtney Kashima, AICP, chats with David Fields, AICP, at the 2017 National Planning Conference in New York City. David is Principal at Nelson Nygaard in San Francisco and the former chair of APA's Transportation Division.

This is the first episode in a new series that explores the business of planning for the built environment. Hosted by Courtney Kashima, AICP, planner and small business owner of Muse Community + Design in Chicago. Each episode features conversations between planners on work, life, ideas and problem solving in a variety of communities. In this episode Courtney has a conversation with Jamie Simone on her role with the plan for the innovative public space and alternative transportation corridor; the 606 in Chicago.

APA's Editor in Chief, Meghan Stromberg, interviews Andrew Salzberg, Head of Transportation Policy and Research at Uber. This interview is part of a series about disruptive technologies within the world of transportation featured in the April 2017 issue of Planning magazine.

APA's Editor in Chief, Meghan Stromberg, interviews Josh Westerhold, Senior Manager of Nissan's Future Lab. This interview is part of a series about disruptive technologies within the world of transportation featured in the April 2017 issue of Planning magazine.

APA's Editor in Chief, Meghan Stromberg, interviews Jon Terbush, Communications Manager from bike share company, Zagster. This interview is part of a series about disruptive technologies within the world of transportation featured in the April 2017 issue of Planning magazine.

Jason Jordan, APA's Director of Policy, interviews Kara Drane, AICP about APA's forthcoming set of principles that should guide a new federal infrastructure program.

The Delaware Coalition for Healthy Eating and Active Living is working to include health and equity elements when updating comprehensive plans within the state. This podcast features an interview with David Edgell, AICP, Project Lead for Plan4Health for the Delaware Chapter of the American Planning Association, and Tim Gibbs, Executive Director Delaware Academy of Medicine and Delaware Public Health Association.

An interview with Karen Lane, Preventions Program Manager at Louis and Clark Public Health, about how the Healthy Communities Coalition is working to develop an active living wayfinding system for parks and along urban trails in the greater Helena, Montana area.

An interview with Chad Call, Shared Use Specialist, and Luisa Krug, Chronic Disease Epidemiologist, both of the Tulsa Health Department on the Pathways to Health initiative.

Liz Kastor, The Active Transportation Community of Interest (AT COI) manager, discusses how the organization, through the Plan4Health coalition, seeks to increase access to safe, healthy, and affordable active transportation options for people living in the Puyallup Watershed in Pierce County, Washington.

Linda Fulmer, Executive Director of Healthy Tarrant County Colaboration, discusses how the Plan4Health coalition is helping to bring access to healthy food in the southeast Fort Worth area.

In this edition of Planner Profile, APA interviews Courtney Kashima, AICP, Principal at MUSE Community + Design and President of APA's Illinois Chapter.

A discussion about the work of the Plan4Health coalition in Umatilla County, Oregon with Jessica Nischik-Long, Executive Director at the Oregon Public Health Association, and Becky Steckler,AICP, Program and Policy Manager at the Oregon Chapter of the American Planning Association

A discussion about the work of the Plan4Health coalition in Thomas County, Kansas with Eldonna Chestnut, chair of APHA's Council of Affiliates, and Dr. Robert Moser, President-Elect of Kansas APHA.

Jack Molenaar, AICP, a transportation planner with more than 22 years of experience in both the public and private sector, give his perspective on both areas of his career, as well as his experience attending a national presidential convention.

Washington D.C.'s NoMa neighborhood has seen a tremendous amount of rapid growth in the last decade and with no land set aside for parks and publicly accessible space. We learn how that challenge is being addressed in this podcast interview with Robin Eve Jasper, President of the NoMa Business Improvement District and President of the NoMa Parks Foundation. Robin is also joined by Stacie West, Director of Parks Projects for the NoMa Parks Foundation.

APA's Career Services Manager Bobbie Albrecht interviews Riverside, California planner, Miguel Vazquez, AICP on his planning career path, including advice for emerging planning professionals on how to move forward within the field.

Mariia Zimmerman, Vice Chair of Regional Planning for APA's Regional and Intergovernmental Planning Division interviews Stephanie Gidigbi, Director of Strategic Initiatives at the U.S. Department of Transportation

Kyle Elliott, Division Manager from the Department of Long Range Planning & Preservation for Kansas City, and David Johnson, Vice Chair at the Kansas City Regional Transit Alliance, discuss the Kansas City streetcar project.

Jim Schwab, AICP, APA's manager of the Hazards Planning Research Center interviews acting Director of NOAA's Office for Coastal Management and Chad Berginnis, Executive Director of the Association of State Floodplain Managers on the Regional Coastal Resilience program.

A discussion on the Economic Impact of Parks nationally, and how Arlington County's Park Commission is using a recent economic impact study to help make the case for Parks and Recreation in the area. Featured speakers include; Kevin A. Roth, Vice President of Research at the National Recreation and Park Association, Elizabeth Gearin, AICP, with the Arlington County Planning Commission, William Ross, vice chair of the Arlington County Park and Recreation Commission, and Jennifer Fioretti, deputy director at the Arlington County Department of Parks and Recreation.

Steve Steinhoff discusses Plan4Health and its role with the Capital Region Healthy Communities initiative in Dane County, Wisconsin.

The discussion with Hugh Morris, AICP, LEED, manager of the Smart Growth Program for the National Association of Realtors focused on the results of the recent poll of residents in the 50 largest metropolitan areas in the U.S. The poll focused on biking, walking, and transit use as well as the degree to which respondents would be willing to live in a smaller home if it meant they could walk to more places. The large sample size, 3,000, provides an opportunity to examine the data though several demographic lenses.

Recorded October 28, 2015 at the National Building Museum, Washington D.C. In urban areas, stormwater presents major challenges for water quality. Runoff and combined sewer overflows result in impaired quality and degraded watersheds. Increasingly, green infrastructure approaches can treat and reduce discharge volumes and help mitigate flood risk, in addition to a range of environmental, social, and economic benefits. Learn from the experiences of Washington, D.C., and Philadelphia in adopting green stormwater management approaches. Moderator David Rouse, AICP, American Planning Association Speakers Paula Conolly, AICP Policy Strategist, Green City, Clean Waters Program, Philadelphia Water Department Bethany Bezak, PE, LEED AP Green Infrastructure Manager, DC Water, DC Clean Rivers Project Mathy Stanislaus Assistant Administrator for the Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response, U.S. EPA

APA New York Metro Chapter President, James Rausse, AICP, discusses the "Live Well Kingston" coalition in New York.

Get an overview of what we know about changing consumer demand and some of the drivers behind these changes in demand. Learn how the USDA Agricultural Marketing Service's Local Food Research and Development Division is trying to help farmers and food marketers take advantage of the recent surge in local food demand through grant assistance, primary data collection, applied research on emerging business models, technical assistance, and market facility design. Debra Tropp of the USDA outlines a recent effort to capture and quantify economic impacts of local food system investments. She discusses the rollout of a toolkit that can be used by planners and other development practitioners in responding to oft-repeated questions about the expected job creation and economic activity resulting from public investments in local food systems infrastructure.

Small and rural planning and zoning commissions often have limited capacity. In response, the Eastern Highlands (Connecticut) Health District Community Health Action Response Team coalition will develop a toolkit aimed at assisting planning and zoning commissions with understanding how planning can impact long-term public health. In this podcast APA interviews coalition member Emily Hultquist about the project.

In July, D.C.'s first seasonal parklet popped up along K Street's busy commercial district. Transforming two parking spots into a playful, interactive micro-park, it invites pedestrians and office workers into a small oasis with fern and liatris. Called "parKIT," this new public space was designed by Gensler in collaboration with the Golden Triangle BID, as a toolkit for D.C.'s parklets. Wedge-shaped, multi-use modules of various heights can be scattered and rearranged by the public, and the scene at the parklet has been ever-changing since its opening. In this presentation, the parKIT team discussed the lessons learned from the design process, various reactions, and discoveries through the daily operation of the parklet. Also, they shared their observations on how temporary urban spaces can generate a new type of participation and placemaking in D.C.

The Santa Fe Railyard in Santa Fe, New Mexico was designated as a 2015 "Great Place in America" for the public space category by the American Planning Association. In this podcast Brian Drypolcher and Greg Hiner from the Trust for Public Land discuss how the Santa Fe Railyard became a vibrant public space.

Jim Schwab, AICP interviews James Buika from the Department of Planning for the County of Maui and Tara Owens from the University of Hawaii Sea Grant program about disaster recovery planning in Hawaii.

An interview with Daren Fluke, AICP about the Idaho Plan4Health coalition.

An interview with APA member and Bensenville, Illinois planner Victoria Benham about the "B-Well Bensenville" campaign which is part of APA's Plan4Health initiative.

Roundtable discussion on water shortage and drought originally aired July 13, 2015 on KVMR Radio in Nevada City, California. Discussion participants include Frank Meecham, San Luis Obispo Board Supervisor from District 1; Tom Tedd, Director of the Office of the Columbia River - Department of Ecology for the State of Washington; Vic Ferrara, Nevada County Office of Emergency Services; Jim Schwab, AICP, APA's Manager of the Hazards Planning Center.

Tuesday, July 14, 2015 As news arises of drought, harmful algal blooms, and chemical spills across the nation, we are regularly reminded of the need to protect drinking water in our cities and communities. Every day, land use decisions affect future drinking water supplies, either intentionally or inadvertently. By protecting sources of drinking water through regular planning activities and practices like green infrastructure, we can build resilient, healthy, and beautiful communities. The Source Water Collaborative formed in 2006 with the goal to combine the strengths and tools of a diverse set of member organizations to act now, and protect sources of drinking water for generations to come. As a member of the collaborative, APA works with partners like the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Forest Service, Smart Growth America, and many others to help communities across the nation protect sources of drinking water. Rachel Carlson is an environmental protection specialist in the Drinking Water Protection Division, Office of GroundWater and Drinking Water, U.S. EPA. She assists with geospatial analysis and outreach in a variety of projects to protect sources of drinkingwater and participates in the Source Water Collaborative, a group of 26 national organizations including APA that are dedicated to protectingsource water. Jim Taft is executive director of the Association of State Drinking Water Administrators, which supports the efforts of drinking water program administrators in states, territories, the District of Columbia, and the Navajo Nation as they implement the provisions of the Safe Drinking Water Act.

APA talks to Dale Morris, Senior Economist at the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, DC and David Waggonner, president of Waggonner and Ball Architects in New Orleans about the "Dutch Dialogues" workshops.

Linking Communities Together Through Innovative Regional Transportation Planning May 12, 2015 Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and regional planning councils are in the midst of a wave of innovative practices in how they work with communities to create long-range plans and how they work with local jurisdictions to implement land use, transportation and development decisions that support regional outcomes. Mariia Zimmerman shared highlights of recent work that she has conducted through her company, MZ Strategies, looking at some of the emerging best practices including highlights from the Innovative MPO Guidebook published by Transportation for America. Specifically, what types of local assistance programs are being created to foster more livable communities, how are regional agencies incorporating social equity into their investment decisions, and what role are MPOs and regional planning agencies playing in cross sector regional collaboratives. Erich Zimmermann focused on how MPOs and regional planners are innovating to provide better value to the communities they serve. Regional planners across the country are finding new ways to demonstrate their important role in transportation, economic development, and community well-being.

2014 AICP Symposium - Originally Recorded on October 29, 2014 at the National Building Museum "Housing Equity and Healthy Housing Choices" Featuring: Carol Payne, Director, Baltimore Field Office of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Derek Hyra, Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, American University Jonathan Wilson, Deputy Director, National Center for Healthy Housing

On this episode, APA’s Emily Pasi talks with APA member Brad Klamer of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans about the actions the City of New Orleans is taking to create a more water resilient, green and educated community. We’ll explore what cities New Orleans is looking to as models in resiliency planning and how the City is learning to live with water.

February 24, 2015 This talk drew upon lessons from the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP), a collaboration of the Urban Institute and organizations in 35 cities. NNIP partners help local actors use neighborhood data to improve communities through policy, planning, and advocacy. From her experience in NNIP, Kathryn Pettit of the Urban Institute discussed the types of information infrastructure needed to make good decisions in a local community — including open government data, integrated data systems, community indicators, and neighborhood data systems. Examples from local partners demonstrated how stakeholders are using local data on health, housing, and education to set priorities and make better decisions, including examples from the Washington and Baltimore areas. For more information about NNIP, visit www.neighborhoodindicators.org.

APA interviews Rodger Lentz, AICP, Chief Planning and Development Officer for the City of Wilson, North Carolina and Will Aycock, General Manager of Wilson's Greenlight Community Broadband. They discuss the city's recent successful petition with the FCC and how the issue of municipal broadband will continue to be important for planners.

Pete Pointner, FAICP, former board member of the Historic Pullman Foundation in Chicago discusses the history of the Pullman neighborhood and its recent proclamation as a National Monument by President Barack Obama.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014 Transit-oriented development (TOD) is defined by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) of Northeastern Illinois as moderate to high-density, mixed-use communities generally located within a half-mile radius (10-minute walk) of a rail or bus station designed to maximize walkability and transit access. Interest in TOD is driven by its ability to reduce traffic congestion; changing demographics; and a desire to live in mixed-use, sustainable, and walkable communities accessible to transit. In this program, Heather Tabbert, AICP, and Tony Manno, both from the RTA, discuss how the Community Planning program has transformed over the years in response to the needs of communities, the results of a recent survey of TOD residents, and case studies of several diverse communities from throughout the region that have taken TOD planning from vision to reality.

Climate risks and sustainable growth are shared responsibilities — engineers, architects, planners, and developers are uniquely placed to improve the built environment. Sustainable development can both reduce emissions and cities' vulnerability to climate change and many impacts can be avoided, reduced, or delayed. Cities have the right density, economic conditions, and geographic scale for efficient public transport; recycling of water, waste, and materials; and energy production, distribution, and use. However, few cities have reached their full potential in these areas. There are major benefits with creating cities with substantial efficient use of resources, where transportation and use of infrastructure is both effective and attractive, land is used optimally, and the impacts on water and the natural environment are limited. Cooperation and synergies require more coordinated solutions, as well as new construction with better environmental performance and more energy efficient transport vehicles. In this program, Stellan Fryxell from Tengbom architects, and Erik Freudenthal, from GlashusEtt, presented an overview of SymbioCity, the Swedish approach to fostering sustainable urban systems and processes. And they used the Hammarby Sjöstad waterfront redevelopment project in Stockholm, Sweden, to illustrate how the SymbioCity approach has been applied at the district scale.

Private Capital, Public Good September 28, 2014 National Building Museum Washington, D.C. Featuring Guest Speaker Congressman John Delaney and a panel discussion with Ben Hecht, CEO of Living Cities, John Rahaim, Planning Director of the City and County of San Francisco, and William Anderson, FAICP, President of the American Planning Association Today's fiscal and political realities make private and philanthropic investments ever more important to building communities. New tools like social impact bonds are rapidly moving from concept to reality. In Washington, Congress is debating how to leverage private and nonprofit involvement in infrastructure and housing. The latest Burnham Forum will zero in on these issues from the perspectives of the investors and communities working with new partners.

September 23, 2014 The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) projects a population increase of 1.96 million people and 1.24 million jobs in the Northeastern Illinois region by the year 2030. And the cumulative impact of planning decisions throughout the region will determine the degree to which the built environment will satisfy the broad objectives of (1) meeting human needs efficiently; (2) creating economically viable and sustainable communities; (3) shaping the built environment in harmony with the landscape and the natural and cultural environments that frame the context of a specific project or area; and (4) nourishing the human spirit by creating beauty, diversity, order, justice, and opportunity. In this program, Pete Pointner, FAICP, presented seven key principles to guide the future of planning practice. Drawing on his book Planning Connections, Pointner emphasized the cumulative effects of principle-based planning decisions, focusing on the important role that planners play in supporting people, the environment, and our economic well-being.

August 26, 2014 Until recently, climate change has correlated to polar bears and melting ice caps — heart rending, but safely distant. Yet climate-related extreme weather, combined with urban development, is starting to show its force, as realized by the severe droughts in California and the misery caused to millions of home owners and businesses as a result of urban flooding. With these impacts comes the potential for public mobilization and a renewed focus on the way we plan our towns and cities. But can we channel individual concerns over wet basements and leaky pipes into a broader public participation and advocacy movement? This July, the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) launched Rain Ready (rainready.org), aimed at building an alliance of individuals and communities working together to find solutions to the problems of too much or too little water. Rain Ready is inspired by the growing number of resident actions groups in the Chicago region mobilizing as a result of the impacts of flooding in their area. It seeks to offer a response to their question: "What should we do?" In 2013, CNT launched Wetrofit — the nation's first service for property owners affected by urban flooding, and in 2014, CNT designed and promoted the Urban Flooding Awareness Act, which was passed unanimously by the Illinois General Assembly and requires the State of Illinois to carry out a study on the solutions to urban flooding. In this program, Harriet Festing of CNT presented an overview of her organization's water-related work and discussed opportunities and challenges for planners as they engage their communities around the topic of urban water management.

July 22, 2014 APA's Community Planning Assistance Team (CPAT) initiative provides pro-bono planning assistance to communities with a demonstrated need and a lack of planning resources and expertise. Each CPAT pairs a multidisciplinary team of expert planning professionals from around the country with community members, key stakeholders, and relevant decision makers to foster community education, engagement, and empowerment. In this program, Rich Roths, AICP, and Douglas Martin, AICP, shared insights from their respective CPAT experiences and demystifyed the process for potential participants. In September 2013, Roths led a CPAT looking at the potential future of a gateway commercial corridor located in a floodplain in Franklin, Tennessee. The previous year, Martin lent his expertise to a CPAT for Wakulla Gardens, a small-lot subdivision in otherwise rural Wakulla County, Florida. After summarizing these projects, Roths and Martin highlighted lessons learned for future CPATs.

June 17, 2014 Many contemporary conversations about sustainable design and development emphasize walkability. But, in terms of the potential effects of walkability on carbon emissions, it's important to separate fact from fiction. While there is no argument that walking contributes to health, pedestrian-friendly districts and neighborhoods may not be enough to significantly reduce vehicle miles traveled (VMT). In this program, Lane Kendig, from Kendig Keast Collaborative, explored how the concept of walkability relates to four types of trips: commuting, shopping, recreation, and child-related. He discussed the connections between density, intensity, transit, and significant reductions in VMT. Through a series of case studies, Kendig made a case for the necessity of zoning reforms that prohibit auto-oriented urban development.

May 20, 2014 Emerging manufacturing technologies, such as 3-D printing, promise to revolutionize the way things are made. Will they also revolutionize the spatial pattern of metropolitan development? Could these technologies lead to a radical decentralization of manufacturing through the proliferation of artisan-type shops within the next decade? In this program, Howard Wial, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, uses concepts from economic geography to assess the ways in which emerging manufacturing technologies are and aren't likely to reshape the physical form of U.S. metropolitan areas and the location of manufacturers within them. He discusses how these technologies have the potential to create new opportunities for small and medium-sized manufacturers and the most likely locations for new manufacturers. Finally, Wial highlights some of the freight transportation and workforce development issues related to increased adoption of emerging manufacturing technologies.

April 22, 2014 As one of the largest single land uses in our municipal "footprints," parking deserves more attention than is typically bestowed upon it. Besides encouraging auto use, having an excessive supply of parking influences the character, form, function and flow of our communities. It makes walking and bicycling unpleasant and unsafe, it adds to flooding and pollution problems, and it makes housing more expensive. At the same time, parking is necessary to support a community's local businesses; finding the right balance between supply and demand — as an economist would — is the next step. In the Chicago area, the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) has been working with several communities through its Local Technical Assistance program to understand the unique parking challenges and identify potential solutions. In this program Lindsay Bayley, from CMAP, discussed parking management strategies and presented the findings from two very different projects: downtown suburban Hinsdale, Illinois, and the Chicago neighborhood of Wicker Park/Bucktown.

March 18, 2014 Both theorists and practitioners see design standards as shaping the "look" of the community and built environment over the long run — with significant underlying ideology. Planning professionals may view design guidelines and review processes as useful tools to communicate local preferences and resolve issues. And, design standards and form-based codes have become powerful branding and placemaking tools for suburbs in the Chicago metropolitan area and nationwide. This program and discussion served to highlight contrasting perspectives on the benefits of design review. Drawing on observations from public architectural review commission hearings in local suburbs, Professor Robert Rotenberg, from DePaul University, considered case studies of how design standards work to shape the development decisions by stakeholders in Cook County, Illinois. Attorney and consultant John Hedrick summarized the regulatory background and recent developments in the Chicago metropolitan area regarding best practices in utilizing design guidelines.

The Missing Metric March 4, 2014 With the multiple crises of municipal insolvency, climate change and citizen pushback against government regulation at all levels, it makes sense to consider a new "balance-sheet" approach to granting development approvals. Such an approach would screen for more compact, high-value development that would pay back government's up-front infrastructure investments on a more rapid basis. On first blush, the regulatory strategy would not seem compatible with Smart Growth and New Urbanism, both of which are strongly driven by urban design and physical form. Such models, which have gained wide acceptance among planners as preferred models for more sustainable community development, have proved difficult to implement within the regulatory structures that prevail in the United States and Canada. By incorporating the "missing metric" into development review, municipalities may be able to reduce and even eliminate many cumbersome and highly subjective development regulations, and at the same time make it easier to achieve more amenable, resource-efficient and economically stable communities. For a recent article by speaker Peter Katz on the approach, visit www.gfoa.org/downloads/GFOAGFRAug13MissingMetric.pdf

February 25, 2014 The Calumet Region of Indiana and Illinois at the southern end of Lake Michigan has great ecological significance, cultural diversity, and economic might but is now grappling with questions of regional direction in the wake of widespread deindustrialization. The idea of designating the Calumet as a National Heritage Area grew from a 1998 feasibility study by the National Park Service.The Calumet Heritage Partnership, formed as a result of the study, has worked to keep the Heritage Area idea alive. Drs. Mark Bouman, from the Field Museum, and William Peterman, professor emeritus at Chicago State University, introduce the concept of National Heritage Areas with examples of successful NHAs in other parts of the country; discuss why NHAs should be of interest to planners; and show how the creation of a Calumet NHA would be consistent with and augment existing and evolving plans for the Calumet region.

January 28, 2014 The HUD Choice Neighborhoods Initiative employs a comprehensive approach to neighborhood transformation through the revitalization of distressed public housing and the creation of economic, social, physical, and educational initiatives. Through this initiative, planners and community groups are working to turn distressed housing and long neglected neighborhoods into viable and sustainable mixed-income communities that support positive outcomes for families. In this program, Adam Rosa, AICP, of Camiros compared and contrasted planning efforts in two different Choice Neighborhoods. He shared the strategies that are being employed in the troubled Ellis Heights neighborhood of Rockford, Illinois, to foster positive neighborhood change through the arts and online entrepreneurship (including a strategic relationship with Etsy.com). In addition, he discussed the creative techniques being used to address the distinct challenge of gentrification in the rapidly changing Rosewood community of Austin, Texas.

Authors Jon B. DeVries and D. Bradford Hunt discuss the state of planning in the Chicago region and their book Planning Chicago.

January 7, 2014 For the past three years, APA has been working in Latin America to promote urban planning. The most recent grant from the U.S. Department of State's Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas has focused on four innovative housing and community development demonstration projects in Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. This presentation explains the background of the region's planning issues and showcases the progress of the four projects.

Immigration is woven into American history. But what about its future? Each year APA's professional institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners, hosts a fall symposium on a timely topic in planning. As federal legislators debate immigration reform, this fall's symposium looks at how immigrants affect the economies and cultures of the cities where they live and work. Hear regional perspectives on a dynamic group of people and their role in places across the United States. Recorded on October 29, 2013 at the National Building Museum in Washington D.C. Panelists Stacy Anne Harwood Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana Fatima Shama Commissioner New York City Mayor's Office of Immigrant Affairs Leslie Wollack Program Director of Infrastructure National League of Cities Paul Farmer, FAICP, moderator CEO American Planning Association

November 12, 2013 Across the country, hundreds of communities have embraced Complete Streets policies as a way to foster safer streets that serve everyone, not just drivers. But individual projects and general policies aren't enough: transportation agencies often struggle to reform decades of rules, practice, and politics that prioritize cars. Barbara McCann, founding director of the National Complete Streets Coalition, has dug into what it takes to upend the way every transportation project is conceived, planned, and evaluated so each provides for people walking, bicycling, or taking the bus. McCann will discuss what she learned about why Complete Streets too often fail and what can be done to close that gap between policy and practice. She will share the stories of practitioners in cities and towns from Charlotte, North Carolina, to Colorado Springs, Colorado, who have made four fundamental changes in the way transportation projects are chosen, planned, and built.

November 19, 2013 A growing number of cities across the country have begun to acknowledge their waterfronts as valuable community assets through plans, capital investments, and development regulations. The Cal-Sag Channel and Little Calumet River wind through the ecologically rich, but economically challenged Calumet region in Chicago's south suburbs. The region has received attention lately through the state's Millennium Reserve initiative, a new land bank and transit-oriented development fund, and possible national park designation for the Pullman neighborhood, and it's poised to take advantage of its rich water assets. At the center of much of this activity is the City of Blue Island, Illinois, an inner-ring suburb straddling both banks of the Cal-Sag Channel. Jason Berry, from the City of Blue Island, and Abby Crisostomo, from the Metropolitan Planning Council, discussed a number of water-oriented planning activities happening in Blue Island — from neighborhood-based approaches to green infrastructure and stormwater management, to community engagement in the creation of a waterfront plan, to regional-scale planning for an intercollegiate rowing center and more. They highlighted the lessons learned for integrating the recognition of water as an asset into community planning.

October 22, 2013 The American mobilization for World War II is famed for its industrial production; less well known is that it was also one of the greatest urban planning challenges that the United States has ever faced. Although Americans tend to think of World War II as a time of national unity, mobilization had a fractious side. Interest groups competed for federal attention, frequent — sometimes violent — protests interrupted mobilization plans, and seemingly local urban planning controversies could blow up into investigations by the U.S. Senate. Drawing on her recently released book, Planning the Home Front: Building Bombers and Communities at Willow Run, Sarah Jo Peterson shows how the federal government used a participatory planning approach to mobilize the home front. For the massive Willow Run Bomber Plant, built in a rural area 25 miles west of Detroit, bringing the plant to success required dealing with housing, transportation, and communities for its tens of thousands of workers. It involved Americans from all walks of life: federal officials, industrialists, labor leaders, social activists, small business owners, civic leaders, and — just as significantly — the industrial workers and their families.

October 22, 2013 Despite the planning profession's origins in visionary thinking about the future of our cities, many contemporary planning practitioners are mired in the political battles of today and, therefore, can feel disconnected from the idea of imagining how the cities of tomorrow may have different needs and functions than the cities of today. According to architect and urban designer Marshall Brown, from the Illinois Institute of Technology, future cities will be rooted in but not beholden to current realities. The cities of the future will likely be "mash-ups," recombining and repurposing infrastructure and design features. Brown discussed his recent projects, including proposals for reimaging Chicago's Circle Center, and shared ideas about American cities and their futures.

Tuesday, September 24, 2013 While the greater Chicago region has historically had access to ample fresh water, it can no longer assume that water supplies are infinite. Without coordinated planning and policy, the Chicago region may be in jeopardy of forfeiting future growth and prosperity. Fortunately, a lot has happened since the 2010 release of Water 2050: Northeastern Illinois Water Supply/Demand Plan that bodes well for water supply planning and management in northeastern Illinois, including the creation of the Northwest Water Planning Alliance, momentum toward a modernized state plumbing code, and the creation of the Clean Water Initiative. At the same time, there remains a lot of work to, including developing a sustainable revenue stream to support ongoing regional water supply planning. Josh Ellis, from the Metropolitan Planning Council, will summarize the current state of water supply planning in the Chicago region, and highlight opportunities for moving Northeastern Illinois toward a more sustainable water supply paradigm.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013 Since 2010, the American Planning Association (APA) has worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to examine the inclusion of public health goals within comprehensive plans and their implementation. This presentation will identify best practices for the effective integration of public health goals into plans and successful approaches to cross-sector collaboration and community partnerships to implement those goals. Anna Ricklin and Nick Kushner of APA's Planning and Community Health Research Center offer case study examples of how local government agencies can build upon partnerships for assistance and resources to translate a comprehensive plan from policy document into a set of actions to improve community health. As built environment factors increasingly determine public health outcomes, this presentation offers a clear and targeted avenue for intervention at the highest level of built environment planning.

Tuesday, August 27, 2013 The more planners engage in collaborative participation the more they should expect to find people making judgments about the future tied to current emotional attachments. How do planners anticipate this and prepare activities and plans that encourage and foster emotional shifts? Most planners and plans provide argument and evidence to inform clients about future changes giving reasons in support of different alternative responses. But these do not work in the face of emotional attachments to familiar and popular practices. The use of narrative and storytelling offers a way for professionals to anticipate and counter client attachments. Professor Charles Hoch, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, shared some highlights from his research about the effects of emotions on planning processes and discussed the power of narrative in planning.

The Walter Reed Army Medical Center Reuse Plan provides the urban framework for 66.5 acres of land to be transferred to the District of Columbia following closing of the military installation. The planning effort was led by the District Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development and the Office of Planning. This land has valuable frontage to 16th Street and Georgia Avenue, two major axial corridors, with the former originating in the White House and the latter being a major passageway between D.C. and Silver Spring. Presenters Susana Arissó, AICP, and Martine Combal, AICP, discussed the cutting edge sustainable framework. This future neighborhood is set to become one of the five EcoDistricts in the Washington area, consisting of an exciting mixed-use development balancing new construction with historic buildings, open recreational spaces, destination retail, and residential, institutional and office uses totaling three million gross square feet. Located in an area of Georgia Avenue in dire need of revitalization, this plan envisions a "one-stop shop" for ordinary and extraordinary needs alike.

The U.S. Constitution guarantees freedom of expression, freedom of religion, and the right to bear arms. Nevertheless, land uses that are dependent on these guarantees continue to court controversy in many communities. Whether sparked by chronic concerns over threats to community character or more acute debates related to public safety, many planners find themselves on the front lines of battles over contentious uses that have some claim on being constitutionally protected. Drawing from practice-based experience and lessons from case law, Adam Simon and Dan Bolin from Ancel, Glink discussed local regulatory issues related to strip clubs, churches, guns shops and other land uses entangled with rights flowing from the First and Second Amendments of the U.S. Constitution.

Transit oriented development has become the holy grail of land use and transportation planners. The logic of concentrating both residential and commercial growth at transit stations — especially rail transit stations — is compelling and has ample empirical support. There is also evidence that transit accessibility increases property values near stations and that mixed use, high density development near stations increases transit ridership. But investments in transit are designed to move riders through a transit corridor, thus the success of transit investments should be measured at the corridor, not the station, level. In this presentation, Professor Gerrit Knaap, director of the National Center for Smart Growth at the University of Maryland, introduced the newly formed Purple Line Corridor Coalition. The goal of the coalition is to assure that investments in the purple line transit corridor achieve more than transit oriented development but serve as a stimulus for sustainable and equitable economic development throughout the corridor without displacing affordable housing or small businesses.

June 25, 2013 As we emerge from the Great Recession, communities with a predictable development review and approval process have a powerful competitive advantage in attracting private investment and economic development. Now, more than ever, limited access to capital, weaker markets, and less ability (or willingness) to share financial incentives is steering good development toward "easier" environments. "Winning" communities are delivering a predictable entitlement process that advances the community's planning and development objectives and rewards good development with less stress and less delay. This concept is not about giving away the store, "padding" anybody's bottom line, or accepting undesirable development. The focus is on a balance between the assurance that communities must have from an approval and the predictability a developer seeks in navigating that process. Michael Blue, FAICP, from Teska Associates will draw on his experience managing municipal development departments and serving clients as a consultant to outline how communities can evaluate their approval systems with an eye toward securing desirable outcomes. The session will focus on questions such as: What parts of the approval process are most essential? What elements may be missing from your process that can provide greater confidence to city and developer?

Despite a storied planning history, Chicago is no longer a city that plans with confidence and vision. Chicago lacks a city department with the name "planning" in its title. Instead, this essential municipal function is now largely focused on immediate zoning matters with long range and strategic planning in a secondary role and largely replaced with piecemeal, ad hoc, and volunteer planning efforts – often funded and focused on disconnected Tax Increment Financing (TIF) districts. The city had great success in the 1950s and 1960s in crafting strong central area plans and path-breaking comprehensive plans that laid the groundwork for a major commercial and residential revival. In the most recent decade however major planning initiatives have been largely unimplemented and replaced by deal-making, site-specific and one-off projects. Systematic, coordinated, long-range efforts have been difficult to initiate or sustain. Drawing on their new APA Planners Press book Planning Chicago, authors Jon B. DeVries, AICP, and D. Bradford Hunt of Roosevelt University will explain the rise and retreat of planning over the past half century and the need for a planning renaissance in Chicago.

The film It's a Wonderful Life grows more relevant every day as more American consumers lose the value in their homes and anonymous customer service calling centers become our primary contact with our banks. However, there are still more than 7,000 banks and 7,000 credit unions in the United States. Each of these still has the ability to convert your insured deposit into a loan to a local business and to step up as a community civic leader. Just under 100 of those banks are certified by the U.S. Treasury as "community development banks" and another 500 nonprofit community loan funds finance housing rehab, small businesses, and nonprofit facilities. Ron Grzywinski and Mary Houghton will discuss the role that ShoreBank played as the first and largest community development bank and the increasing importance of community development financial institutions as long term partners in community and economic development. They will touch on the new Global Alliance for Banking on Values as well as opportunities for planners to contribute to more liveable, renewed communities.

While sustainability and green urbanism have become buzzwords in urban policy circles, too little analysis has focused on who gets to decide what green looks like. Many visions of the green city seem to have room only for park space, waterfront cafes, and luxury LEED-certified buildings, prompting concern that there is no place in the "sustainable" city for industrial uses and the working class. While it is difficult to find anyone against "sustainability," the process through which urban environments are being remade under the rubric of sustainability are highly contested. A major concern is environmental gentrification, in which environmental improvements result in the displacement of working class residents. While social justice is supposed to be an explicit part of any definition of sustainability, the surge in environmental awareness in cities has not been matched with concern for social equity. Instead, the environmental dimension tends to obscure the social processes that created it. And yet, sustainable development can potentially provide communities with alternative ways of thinking about economic development, resource use, and social justice. Drawing on case studies from both New York and Chicago, Winifred Curran from DePaul University discussed a strategy she calls "just green enough" to allow for an urban sustainability that can be used to open up a space for diversity and democracy in the neoliberal city and make space for interventions that challenge the presumed inevitability of gentrification.

Conservation has often been considered a non-use of land, what is left over when other human needs have been accommodated. More recently, the importance of conservation as an intentional land use has been recognized for its role in supporting a variety of human needs: cultural, recreational, and ecosystem services with significant socioeconomic benefits. However, conservation is different because the factors that make an area valuable for conservation are not nearly as flexible and transportable as other land uses that can use a variety of technologies to make sites suitable to accommodate nearly any type of development. NatureServe, an international conservation nonprofit organization, supports assessment and planning for conservation land use through a variety of products and services. The NatureServe Network of state natural heritage programs collect and provide data on the location of rare and imperiled species and ecosystems as well as expertise in the conservation of biodiversity. In this presentation we will highlight these data and tools with some examples from around the U.S. to illustrate how they can inform better land use planning.

In Chicago, 1.8 million trips are taken by transit per day, and more than half of these are by bus. However, because Chicago's congestion is the third worst in the country, buses are often caught in traffic, making them slower and less reliable than they should be. There have been many studies looking at new rail options, including a downtown circulator streetcar and the Circle Line L train, but all have stalled because of the time and money needed to plan and implement. For the last five years, the Chicago Transit Authority and the Chicago Department of Transportation have been planning Bus Rapid Transit in the city. The first new type of transit service since trolley bus service opened in 1930, the Jeffery Jump, is paving the way for Bus Rapid Transit in the Loop and along Western and Ashland Avenues. Christopher Ziemann, Chicago's BRT Project Manager, will discuss the unique approach that Chicago is using to advance BRT economically, politically, and technically.

Professor Thomas O’Rourke, Thomas R. Briggs Professor of Engineering at Cornell University, spoke in July 2012 at the Natural Hazards Workshop in Broomfield, Colorado, on the subject of “Infrastructure Too Big to Fail.” Jim Schwab, AICP, manager of the APA Hazards Planning Research Center, caught up with him later to explore that subject in the context of natural disasters. Their conversation is the focus of this podcast.

According to annual surveys by the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) and the National League of Cities (NLC), cities have been eliminating jobs, decreasing infrastructure investments, and scaling back services for more than a decade. For many municipalities, the Great Recession has exacerbated these trends, endangering these communities ability to invest in future economic growth. Furthermore, the changing nature of municipal revenue structures affects land-use policy and the nature of future development projects. In April 2012 UIC and NLC received a $950,000 grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to conduct a three-year study of municipal responses to the Great Recession. Michael Pagano from UIC shared some highlights of his research to date with a special emphasis on the immediate, and likely lasting, effects of the Great Recession on municipal revenue structures and decision making regarding the type, timing, and location of new development.

As large populations in the United States are aging, our communities must adapt to this demographic shift. More people are living longer in varying locations from cities and towns to rural areas of the country. Planners are in a position to ensure that this growing population has access to services no matter what the context. Issues of mobility, food access, and healthy living are just some topics to be explored in this symposium. Panelists include: Sandy Markwood, CEO National Association of Area Agencies on Aging; Jana Lynott, AICP, Strategic Policy Advisor, AARP; David Ferleger, David Ferleger Law Office; and Elinor Ginzler, moderator, Senior Director, Cahnmann Center for Supportive Services, Jewish Council for the Aging.

Streets are very often a community's largest public asset, yet they have rarely been described as such. In an era of higher gas prices, increasing rates of chronic disease, and an increased call for fiscally responsible investments, people are demanding another look at our streets. They want safe streets that provide a choice of travel modes and access to destinations near and far. They want complete streets. An ideal complete streets policy is an inter-disciplinary vision and an actionable tool to create robust, safe transportation networks within and between our communities. But what are the real barriers to complete design? What do people really mean when they ask for complete streets? And why do so many projects result in incomplete streets? Stefanie Seskin from the Complete Streets Coalition and Paul Lippens, AICP, from the Active Transportation Alliance will describe the 10 elements of a complete streets policy, and how that written direction can prompt transportation decisions that are responsive to community needs. They will also look at common themes encountered in Complete Streets implementation and offer 10 roadway designfixes for complete results.

Each year in the U.S., approximately 1.7 billion square feet of buildings are demolished and approximately 5 billion square feet of newly constructed buildings are added to the total building stock. Until recently, the environmental impacts of this cycle of demolition and new construction have been poorly understood, as were the opportunities to gain carbon savings through building retrofit and reuse. Earlier this year, the National Trust for Historic Preservation released "The Greenest Building: Quantifying the Environmental Value of Building Reuse," the most comprehensive analysis to date comparing the environmental impacts of new construction compared to retrofit and reuse of existing buildings. Commissioned by Preservation Green Lab, a project of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, the study found that building reuse typically offers greater environmental savings than demolition and new construction and that building reuse and retrofits substantially reduce climate change impacts. Patrice Frey from the National Trust for Historic Preservation provided an overview of the study's findings and discussed how the study's data and methodology can be applied to the work of planning professionals.

Stretching 2.7 miles through four vibrant Chicago northwest side neighborhoods, the unused Bloomingdale elevated rail corridor is adjacent to numerous private properties and crosses over major arterials, a historic boulevard, bus and bicycle routes, and the CTA Blue Line. The conversion of this corridor into a trail and park will provide unprecedented connections to and among these communities. The recently released Bloomingdale Trail and Park Framework Plan represents a critical juncture in the development of the project. Balanced between the efforts of the past and the development of the future, it strives to capture and harness the momentum and history of the project while defining a vision for the Bloomingdale's initial development and long-term stewardship. Beth White from the Trust for Public Land and Kathleen Dickhut from the City of Chicago will provide an overview of the collaborative planning process and discuss the plan's guidelines to design, implement, and manage a local trail and park with global appeal in the heart of Chicago's neighborhoods.

Obesity is the foremost public health crisis in Chicago and across the nation. More than half of Chicago adults and one-third of youth are overweight or obese, meaning they are at increased risk for serious, costly health problems such as heart disease and diabetes. A key focus in the city's obesity prevention effort is improving access to healthy food. To this end the City of Chicago is developing a new food plan through a partnership that includes the Departments of Housing and Economic Development, Public Health, Family and Support Services, the Consortium to Lower Obesity in Chicago Children (CLOCC), and many stakeholders that include individuals and organizations representing health and food related issues. Bradley Roback from the City of Chicago will discuss the process of developing the plan and highlight strategies that seek to increase the production and distribution of healthy food, improve access to healthier food, build demand and increase consumption of healthy food, and capitalize on opportunities for job creation and economic development.

Author Tony Hiss (Experience of Place), talks with Bob Yaro, president of the Regional Plan Association about his new paperback edition of In Motion: The Experience of Travel. Hiss and Yaro discuss how planners can take on the role of stewards of Deep Travel.

Riverside, Illinois, and Mariemont, Ohio, are two acclaimed examples of early planned communities. Riverside's plan was created in 1869 by Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York City's Central Park, and John Nolen developed the town plan for Mariemont in 1921 as a national exemplar. Both of these pioneer planners were landscape architects who understood that good planning is good business. In recognition of their uniqueness and significance, Riverside and Mariemont enjoy a special honor — designation as National Historic Landmarks. In addition, they possess such enviable but often elusive attributes as sense of place, strong community identity, and outstanding quality of life. After presenting an overview of Olmsted, Nolen, and the two communities, former Mariemont Preservation Foundation president Frank Raeon, AICP, explained why the design principles used in Riverside and Mariemont merit not only further consideration but potential incorporation into the development patterns and character of communities.

Tax increment financing (TIF) has always been a key tool in the municipal arsenal to make high-quality development projects possible. Since the recession and real estate crash, TIF and other innovative public/private financing mechanisms such as tax credits, loan guarantees, and gap loans, have been more critical than ever. Tony Smith, AICP, of S.B. Friedman Development Advisors will discuss the principles of "when and how to TIF," sharing case studies and approaches for getting the deal done. He will cover the new applications of public/private financing that have emerged since the recession and suggest lessons learned from these applications.

APA talks with Aaron Paley about the CicLAvia bicycle and pedestrian event in Los Angeles.

Timothy Mennel, editor of APA Planners Press, interviews editor David C. Sloane and contributors Todd Gish and Andrew Whittemore, on their newest book, Planning Los Angeles.

Jim Schwab, Manager of the kAPA Hazards Planning Research Center and editor of the Recovery News blog, interviews Shirley Laska, PhD. and Kristina Peterson, PhD., from the Center for Hazards Assessment, Response, and Technology at The University of New Orleans (UNO-CHART).

Mobility Networks in the Americas: Local Politics and Cultural Paradigms March 13, 2012 As cities in Latin America take the lead in developing innovative, cost-effective transportation networks, such as Bus Rapid Transit, outcomes have shown how local politics and culture shape each system differently. Building on previous work in Colombia and New York City, Andrea Marpillero-Colomina, from Columbia University, and Thomas Bassett, from the American Planning Association, discussed recent field research in Santiago, Chile, where the government has recently implemented a new bus system. Like others in the region, this system has been confronted by substantial planning challenges.

Redfield to Redevelopment in Libertyville, Illinois February 21, 2012 The newly minted term redfield refers to financially distressed development projects (i.e., properties in the red). As a result of the Great Recession, few communities are immune to the negative effects of redfields. The relatively affluent community of Libertyville, Illinois, felt the sting when plans for high-end townhomes and the adaptive reuse of a decommissioned elementary school near the village's vibrant downtown went bust in 2008. Then in 2010 Libertyville-based developer John McLinden negotiated purchase of the bank-owned site and secured approval from the Village for the new urbanist SchoolStreet development. At build out, SchoolStreet will feature 26 single-family homes designed to blend with the historic turn-of-the-century homes in the neighborhood in addition to urban lofts in the preserved school. Apart from the project's prime location near downtown and a commuter rail station, another key to the project's success has been an architect-guided design process that allows buyers to customize their homes without adding to final costs. John Spoden, AICP, from the Village of Libertyville and John McLinden from StreetScape Development discussed the details of the SchoolStreet project and explained how this project supports the village's long-term vision for growth and change.

Travel Behavior, Transport Policy, and Sustainable Transport in Germany and the USA February 21, 2012 Reliance on the automobile for most trips contributes to costly trends like pollution, oil dependence, congestion, and obesity. Germany and the U.S. have among the highest motorization rates in the world. Yet Germans make a four times higher share of trips by foot, bike, and public transport and drive for a 25 percent lower share of trips. This presentation investigated daily travel behavior in the two countries and then examined the transport and land-use policies in Germany over the last 40 years that have encouraged more walking, bicycling, and public transport use. Using a case study of policy changes in the German city of Freiburg, Ralph Buehler identified policies that are transferable to car-oriented countries around the world.

Planning for and with Ecosystem Services January 24, 2012 Because all communities benefit from resources and processes supplied by natural ecosystems, ecology can be an important lens for viewing planning and site design. While many planners support and philosophically align with LEED, SITES, and the growing ecological design culture, they may feel ill-equipped to apply scientific findings to planning projects. Jacob Blue from Applied Ecological Services explored how science can inform planning decisions from the planner's and scientist's perspectives and provided planners with basic, practical tools for incorporating ecological decisions into their work.

Greensburg, Kansas, Mayor Bob Dixson, and Stephen Hardy, senior planner with BNIM Architects in Kansas City, who prepared Greensburg’s Sustainable Comprehensive Plan following the May 2007 tornado that devastated the community, talk with Jim Schwab about the city’s four-year-old efforts to rebuild the community on green principles. The accompanying photo gallery consists of dozens of images captured by Jim Schwab during a June 2010 meeting in which Greensburg officials and citizens hosted representatives of several communities struck by tornadoes in the spring of 2010, so that they could learn how Greensburg developed its green recovery vision.

Prioritizing Green Infrastructure Investments November 29, 2011 FCommunity decision makers are increasingly looking at installing green infrastructure to address stormwater issues. To be able to retrofit private property with such natural stormwater solutions, there needs to be a mechanism that can gain private sector involvement and investment. One approach is to use an auction system, where landowners learn about the economic value of stormwater best management practices (BMPs) and then participate in an auction to bid on what BMPs they are willing to pay for. Megan Lewis, AICP, of Cardno JFNew, and Sabina Shaikh of RCF Economic and Financial Consulting, described a project conducted for the City of Valparaiso, Indiana, to help that community prioritize stormwater BMP installation in a specific neighborhood.

In this podcast, Sidney Brower, author of Neighbors & Neighborhoods: Elements of Successful Community Design, discuss the connection between community design and the ability of residents to come together as a community.

2011 AICP Symposium Cities in Transition: Today's Realities and the Next Economies October 27, 2011 9:30 a.m.–12:00 noon National Building Museum Washington, D.C. Cities are always transitioning, requiring planners to reinvent techniques for new economic development. This year's AICP Symposium will provide examples of initiatives from around the country that are creating opportunities for effective and equitable development. Speakers Carolina Barco Former Ambassador of Colombia to the United States Robert N. Brown Director, City Planning Commission Cleveland, Ohio Jay Williams Executive Director, Office of Recovery for Auto Communities and Workers Jason Jordan, moderator American Planning Association Director of Policy and Government Affairs

2011 Lecture Tuesday, October 25, 2011 San Francisco Planning, Policy, and Poetics: Reviving Investment in Transportation and Infrastructure in America Marilyn Taylor Dean of the University of Pennsylvania School of Design The 2011 L'Enfant Lecture was delivered by Marilyn Taylor, who became dean of The School of Design at the University of Pennsylvania in October 2008 after practicing as an architect and urban designer at Skidmore Owings & Merrill. Taylor spoke on "Planning, Policy, and Poetics: Reviving Investment in Transportation and Infrastructure in America." Can we, as designers and planners, help rekindle a sense of stewardship for the future and rebuild the public will needed to stimulate investment? What does this mean for planners and, perhaps more importantly, for planning education?

Christine Butterfield is the director of community development for the city of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which was hit by a record-breaking flood in June 2008. She speaks here about the extensive planning effort to rebuild a city in which more than 10,000 people were evacuated from areas along the Cedar River, historic neighborhoods were inundated, and thousands of residents lost their homes or saw them badly damaged. At the APA National Planning Conference in Boston in April 2011, she and her staff saw the city’s heroic efforts recognized with an APA National Planning Excellence Award for Best Practices in Hazard Mitigation and Disaster Planning, shared with Sasaki Associates, Inc., for the city’s new River Corridor Development Plan.

Planning and Zoning for Natural Resource Protection September 27, 2011 In recent decades, planners have continued to be involved in natural resource protection as a core area of both interest and expertise. However, in many places, mitigation takes precedence over more meaningful efforts to avoid or minimize environmental damage. When wetlands are disturbed or mature trees replaced with seedlings, it may take decades for the natural system to return to its prior value, and in terms of net carbon emissions, the debt may never be repaid. Now that planners are taking a renewed interest in sustainability, the time is right to rediscover planning and zoning principles to protect natural resources. Lane Kendig, founder of Kendig Keast Collaborative, discussed how planners can use performance zoning for resource protection.

Roger Hart and Ramona Mullahy in conversation. Hart is co-director of the Children's Environments Research Group at the City University of New York. His work focuses on the development of theory and research on children's relationship to the physical environment. He has been particularly concerned with the application of research to the planning and design of children's environments and to environmental education.

Roger Hart and Ramona Mullahy in conversation. Hart is co-director of the Children's Environments Research Group at the City University of New York. His work focuses on the development of theory and research on children's relationship to the physical environment. He has been particularly concerned with the application of research to the planning and design of children's environments and to environmental education.

The Role of Planning in Stabilizing Distressed Properties August 30, 2011 Many communities have a glut of entitled but unfinished development projects. Depending on the context and scale of the problem, traditional stabilization tools such as code enforcement may prove inadequate or ineffective. In some cases, the best solution for the community may involve relaxing certain regulatory requirements or renegotiating the terms of development agreements. Daniel Shapiro from Robbins, Salomon & Patt and Jessica Schramm from Thompson Coburn discussed a wide range of strategies planners can use to stabilize and reposition distressed properties. Specific strategies covered will include reviewing agreements recorded against property, negotiating development fees, and re-entitling property. They also addressed how planners can assist when development deals turn sour.

Symposium on Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery On February 10–11, 2011, the American Planning Association hosted a scoping symposium in its Chicago office to explore a number of essential issues in guiding the Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation project as it moves forward. Invited participants focused on helping APA to define the appropriate audiences and central issues for the project, delineate the guiding principles in planning for post-disaster recovery, refine the outline for the PAS Report, and identify criteria for best practices and potential case examples to study.

How did one woman change an entire profession in a few short years with such lasting effects? Listen as Max Page, co-editor of Reconsidering Jane Jacobs, discusses Jane Jacobs's lasting, global influence. Joining Page are contributors Rudayna Abdo, AICP, director of planning at Otak International's Abu Dhabi office, and Jamin Creed Rowan, assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University.

Arlington County's "Community Energy Plan" July 12, 2011 Arlington County's "Community Energy Plan" is a strategic planning effort to ensure economic competitiveness and energy supply security while reinforcing the county's environmental commitment. Through this process Arlington will transform the way it generates, distributes, stores, and uses energy. A nationally recognized leader in climate action, Arlington County is working to reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions from government operations through the Arlington Initiative to Reduce Emissions (AIRE) program. The county has broadened that effort into the community to chart a course toward a healthy, viable, sustainable Arlington for generations to come. The plan aims to sharply reduce energy use in Arlington, including an ambitious goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by more than 70 percent by 2050.

Tools for Great Lakes Planners in NOAA's Digital Coast July 19, 2011 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Digital Coast partnership provides data, tools, and training on topics such as land use, coastal conservation, hazards, marine spatial planning, and climate change. Recently, planners in the Great Lakes have participated in two needs assessments to help build new tools and improve datasets and training courses for climate change adaptation and conservation planning. Panelists from APA, NOAA, and the Old Woman Creek National Estuarine Research Reserve presented the results of these assessments and shared how you can use some of the new tools and datasets in your community. Products featured included climate adaptation training for planners, easy-to-use land cover and elevation data, and a publicly available visualization tool.

Symposium on Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery On February 10–11, 2011, the American Planning Association hosted a scoping symposium in its Chicago office to explore a number of essential issues in guiding the Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation project as it moves forward. Invited participants focused on helping APA to define the appropriate audiences and central issues for the project, delineate the guiding principles in planning for post-disaster recovery, refine the outline for the PAS Report, and identify criteria for best practices and potential case examples to study.

Implementing Sustainable Cities in a Harsh Environment: Some Lessons Learned from Masdar June 21, 2011 Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates is envisioned as the world's first carbon-neutral, zero waste, car-free city. However, the harsh, desert environment and the prevailing planning and construction practices in Abu Dhabi pose special challenges for an inherently ambitious goal. Margaret Cederoth, AICP, will discuss the specific elements of sustainable cities incorporated into the plans for Masdar and the practical methods for implementing these ambitions in the first few buildings of the city. The presentation will highlight relevant master plan elements that are the foundation for sustainability and focus on the physical expression of those elements along with basic contractual and education activities necessary to realize the vision.

Symposium on Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery On February 10–11, 2011, the American Planning Association hosted a scoping symposium in its Chicago office to explore a number of essential issues in guiding the Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation project as it moves forward. Invited participants focused on helping APA to define the appropriate audiences and central issues for the project, delineate the guiding principles in planning for post-disaster recovery, refine the outline for the PAS Report, and identify criteria for best practices and potential case examples to study.

Recycling in Chicago: Past, Present, and Future May 17, 2011 As Chicago begins a new political era, much attention has been paid to the problems in Chicago's recycling program. Carl Zimring from Roosevelt University analyzed the public and private systems used to recycle post-consumer materials in Chicago over the past century, with discussion of how the current system evolved, problems with it, and ways in which future versions of recycling in Chicago might work based on historical precedents and programs in other cities.

Symposium on Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery On February 10–11, 2011, the American Planning Association hosted a scoping symposium in its Chicago office to explore a number of essential issues in guiding the Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation project as it moves forward. Invited participants focused on helping APA to define the appropriate audiences and central issues for the project, delineate the guiding principles in planning for post-disaster recovery, refine the outline for the PAS Report, and identify criteria for best practices and potential case examples to study.

Symposium on Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery On February 10–11, 2011, the American Planning Association hosted a scoping symposium in its Chicago office to explore a number of essential issues in guiding the Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation project as it moves forward. Invited participants focused on helping APA to define the appropriate audiences and central issues for the project, delineate the guiding principles in planning for post-disaster recovery, refine the outline for the PAS Report, and identify criteria for best practices and potential case examples to study.

In this podcast, Barry Checkoway and Ramona Mullahey discuss "The Future of Youth Engagement in Planning." Checkoway is a professor of social work and urban planning at the University of Michigan. He previously worked with the White House in launching AmeriCorps. Checkoway and Mullahey, along with Yve Susskind, are the authors of PAS Report 486, Youth Participation in Community Planning.

Symposium on Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery On February 10–11, 2011, the American Planning Association hosted a scoping symposium in its Chicago office to explore a number of essential issues in guiding the Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation project as it moves forward. Invited participants focused on helping APA to define the appropriate audiences and central issues for the project, delineate the guiding principles in planning for post-disaster recovery, refine the outline for the PAS Report, and identify criteria for best practices and potential case examples to study.

The Plight of Black Coastal Landowners in the Sunbelt South and Its Lessons for Post–Housing Bubble America April 26, 2011 At the turn of the 20th century, African Americans owned vast swaths of property along America's shores. By the post–World War II era, African American beaches and resorts served as important places for working families to escape from the daily indignities of Jim Crow and for a separate, seasonal black leisure economy to take shape. The death of Jim Crow coincided with the emergence of a pro-growth, corporate-friendly Sunbelt economy, which led to massive resort and residential development in coastal areas, and the targeting of black coastal landowners as the path of least resistance. From the 1960s to the present, African American property owners in areas targeted for leisure-based economic and real estate development have struggled to fend off various schemes deployed by developers and their allies in municipal, county, and state governments to expropriate and put to "best use" valuable property. Andrew Kahrl from Marquette University examined the legal instruments of real estate development, black land loss, and the privatization of public space in coastal areas in modern America, its relation to broader changes in the coastal and global economies, and its social and environmental implications.

Re-Planning Crystal City As a 21st Century Urban Village April 26, 2011 The 2006 Base Realignment and Closure (BRAC) action hit Arlington, Virginia, hard. The loss of 17,000 Department of Defense employees and 4.2 million square feet of leased space was the equivalent of losing five military bases, and most of the impact was in the Crystal City neighborhood. Developed largely in the 1960s and 1970s, Crystal City contained approximately 30 buildings aged 30 years or more, originally built to GSA specifications that not longer reflected the needs of the market. Arlington developed a plan to remove the older office buildings, add more than 30 new buildings, increase density by more than 60 percent, and substantially improve transportation and the entire urban environment. This discussion will address the planning process, the economic and transportation analyses that served as the basis of the plan, and the innovative financing plan developed to pay for the necessary infrastructure to make the plan a reality.

Symposium on Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery On February 10–11, 2011, the American Planning Association hosted a scoping symposium in its Chicago office to explore a number of essential issues in guiding the Planning for Post-Disaster Recovery: Next Generation project as it moves forward. Invited participants focused on helping APA to define the appropriate audiences and central issues for the project, delineate the guiding principles in planning for post-disaster recovery, refine the outline for the PAS Report, and identify criteria for best practices and potential case examples to study.

Sustaining Places March 22, 2011 In March 2010, APA President Bruce Knight, FAICP, introduced APA’s Sustaining Places Initiative at the United Nations Fifth World Forum. In his remarks, he explained, "Sustaining Places will examine both how places can be sustained and how places themselves sustain life and civilizations. Planning's comprehensive focus is not limited to a building or a site but encompasses all scales and all forms of organization of human settlements, from rural areas and small town to cities and metropolitan regions. Planners are uniquely qualified to be global leaders in integrating these two concepts of sustainability and places. Ours is the place-making profession and the places that we make must have lasting value for all." Knight's Tuesdays at APA presentation took a closer look at the Sustaining Places Initiative and its focus on positioning the comprehensive plan as the primary local sustainability policy tool.

Gary and Region Investment Project March 15, 2011 Gary and other urban areas in Northwest Indiana have weathered decades of disinvestment. Yet they possess significant — if underused — assets, including national parks, miles of Lake Michigan shoreline, transit hubs, historic landmarks, and a strong workforce. While it would make a natural poster child for what is often called "right-sizing," this region is often overshadowed by cities like Detroit, Flint, and Youngstown in this emerging national dialogue. Nevertheless, the Gary and Region Investment Project (GRIP) is an important sign of how Northwest Indiana is crafting a regional approach to forward key transformative projects with the aim of stabilizing and reinvesting in the urban core. Joanna Trotter from the Metropolitan Planning Council and Hubert Morgan from the Northwest Indiana Regional Planning commission gave an overview of GRIP and provided an update on progress to date.

Community Reinvestment and the Foreclosure Crisis February 22, 2011 According to the Woodstock Institute, lenders repossessed more than 25,000 homes in the Chicago area during the first three quarters of 2010. According to the same analysis, these lender-owned foreclosures will take an average of 16 months to be absorbed by the housing market. Vacant properties cause blight, which destabilizes neighborhoods and local real estate markets, and also weakens the ability of municipalities to maintain a comfortable quality of life by shrinking tax rolls and increasing maintenance costs. Geoff Smith from the Woodstock Institute took an in-depth look at recent trends in foreclosure activity in the Chicago region with a focus on the shifting patterns of regional foreclosures, the concentration of vacant properties tied to foreclosures, and implications for community development.

A Template for Redeveloping Chicago's Neighborhoods January 25, 2011 According to Bruce Frankel, a Professor of Urban Planning at Ball State, neighborhood reinvestment depends on distinct strategies based on neighborhood conditions, both assets and liabilities. In essence, a redeveloper must select the neighborhood for the strategy, and vice-versa. Frankel and his students explained this strategy/conditions matrix and explored how these strategic plans become financially underwritten and structured to be financially sustainable. To illustrate the model in action, Frankel and his students presented a strategy for the Bronzeville neighborhood in Chicago.

Professor Sharon Sutton has had a long career in developing youth engagement programs with a special interest in involving minority and disenfranchised youth. Professor Sutton is interviewed in this podcast by Ramona Mullahey, editor of ResoucesZine APA's electronic publication on youth engagement. They discuss Sutton's new book, The Paradox of Urban Space: Inequity and Transformation in Marginalized Communities.

Cultural Resource Protection November 23, 2010 In 1993 the Town of Ithaca, New York, Planning Department and Cornell University collaborated to launch the Inlet Valley Archaeological Survey (IVAS), a pre-emptive cultural resources survey to identify areas of archaeological importance in an area south of Ithaca slated for major development. The IVAS permitted Ithaca's planning department to work with developers to design around and ultimately protect identified historic and cultural resources. George Frantz, AICP, a visiting lecturer at Cornell, will discuss IVAS and explain how it became the genesis of two public parks and a revival of interest in the area's Native American heritage.

Siting and Permitting Wind Farms October 19, 2010 DeKalb County, Illinois, recently approved a large, commercial wind farm, the first in the county and the largest single zoning action in its history. The wind farm consists of 151 turbines covering an area of approximately 22,000 acres. Paul Miller, AICP, from DeKalb County discussed the review process for this proposal, highlighting the issues raised by objectors to the project as well as responses and adopted solutions. His presentation included lessons learned and recommendations for other jurisdictions considering wind farm proposals.

Green Community Conservation In this episode, listen to Green Community contributors Timothy Beatley and Patrice Frey.

Green Community Density and Transportation In this episode, listen to Green Community contributors F. Kaid Benfield, Fred Hansen, and Mariela Alfonzo.

Green Community Energy In this episode, listen to Green Community contributor Mary Rickel Pelletier.

Green Community Introduction In this episode, listen to Green Community co-editors Timothy Mennel and Susan Piedmont-Palladino discuss contributor insights and the book's production

Local and Global Health Featuring: Carolyn Steel and Esther M. Sternberg

Urban Morphology August 24, 2010 Urban morphology seeks to understand the spatial structure and character of an urban area by examining its patterns and the process of its development. While urban morphology has been a disciplinary specialization amongst American geographers for years, only in southern Europe, where there was no historical separation of planning and architecture, has the work of urban morphologists been brought to bear in the training of architects. In the ongoing work of the International Seminar on Urban Form, Christopher Miller, from Judson University, is exploring with his students a more research-oriented approach to the American architectural value in contextual design. Miller shared recent student work that examines questions like: Can typology be used to solve the problem of the big box in a 19th-century fabric? How is morphology a condition for pedestrian connectivity? Can the connectivity inherent in a historic fabric be the prescriptive standard for infill.

Dutch Dialogues Dale Morris of the Royal Netherlands Embassy in Washington, D.C., and David Waggonner of Waggonner and Ball Architects based in New Orleans discuss the purpose and outcomes of the Dutch Dialogues series held in New Orleans. Read about Dutch Dialogues at www.dutchdialogues.com.

New Orleans Moving Forward Stephen Villavso, FAICP, of Villavaso & Associates, discusses the current planning status of New Orleans and the future of the city.

Complete Streets Listen to a discussion on complete streets with Barbara McCann, Executive Director of The National Complete Streets Coalition, Sarah Zimmerman, Senior Staff Attorney for The National Policy and Legal Analysis Network to Prevent Childhood Obesity (NPLAN), and hosted by APA's Research Associate, David Morley.

Hazard Mitigation Planning Is your community prepared if disaster strikes? John Wilson from Lee County, Florida, and Julia Burrows from Roseville, California, discuss how their respective communities created hazard mitigation plans. Roseville and Lee County are two featured case studies in the new Planning Advisory Service report, Hazard Mitigation: Integrating Best Practices into Planning (PAS 560).

Penny Wise, Pound Fuelish: New Measures of Housing + Transportation Affordability July 20, 2010 Under the traditional definition of housing affordability, seven out of 10 U.S. communities are considered "affordable" to the typical household. But in almost all metro regions of the country, when the definition of affordability includes both housing and transportation costs, the number of communities affordable to households earning the area median income decreases significantly. The Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT) has developed the Housing+Transportation (H+T) Index to address this shortcoming. The index is a publicly available database that demonstrates the transportation costs associated with a home's location thereby providing a more accurate measure of a community's affordability. Peter Haas from CNT provided an overview of the H+T Index, key findings, its public policy applications, and reported on related federal policy initiatives.

More Smiles, Less Miles May 11, 2010 Transportation is a major consideration when planning a region, city, suburb, or even a town center. It has become increasingly common for plans to discuss greenhouse gas emissions in addition to traffic congestion. The good news is that every day, more people are riding clean, riding less, and riding together. This means that millions are spending less on gasoline, helping our country become energy secure, and reducing emissions. John Addison, author of the book Save Gas, Save the Planet, discussed how planners, government leaders, and engaged citizens can help create vibrant and sustainable communities through rail, bus rapid transit, last miles solutions to make transit accessible, bicycle and walking mode shifts, electric and high mileage cars, transportation demand management programs, and smart growth initiatives that include transit oriented development.

This podcast features Scott Shuford, AICP, Planning and Development Director of Onslow County, North Carolina, Suzanne Rynne, AICP, Manager of APA's Green Communities Research Center, and Jan Mueller, Senior Policy Associate with the Environmental and Energy Study Institute, the three coauthors of PAS report 558, Planning for a New Energy and Climate Future. Listen as they discuss the various regional effects of climate change, different approaches to mitigation and adaptation, and how different communities are reducing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions while exploring ways to increase renewable energy opportunities.

Chicago's Central Area Action Plan April 20, 2010 Over the past decade, the central six square miles of Chicago have undergone a dramatic transformation with unprecedented growth in both the residential and educational sectors as well as the construction of new public facilities and museums (most notably the opening of Millennium Park and the modern wing of the Art Institute on the north side of Grant Park). The 2003 Central Area Plan provided a broad framework for new infrastructure and open space projects as well as a basis for Zoning Reform in 2004, and the 2009 Central Area Action Plan builds on this framework. The public projects are prioritized and quantified and growth projections updated to reflect current market conditions. The CAAP takes as a given that the majority of new construction will be by the private sector, but that key public improvements will facilitate this investment and improve the quality of life for everyone who lives, works, or plays in the core of this world city. Benet Haller from the City of Chicago presented this plan and discussed the impact of the global economy and other factors on the final recommendations.

Clear As Mud Hear authors Rob Olshansky and Laurie Johnson discuss their new release Clear As Mud: Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans. Olshansky and Johnson discuss how Hurricane Katrina differed from other international disasters and their experience in tracking the rebuilding of New Orleans.

The Evolution of Our Suburbs March 16, 2010 For the last few decades the Chicago region has been suburbanizing with little regard to energy use, climate change, and urban form. The relentless pursuit of property tax revenue and a focus on single uses and single-site developments distracts many suburban communities from the task of planning for a sustainable and livable built environment. As planners, what should be our approach to the future of our suburbs? Can we afford to continue the growth and development patterns of the past few decades? Are there new growth patterns and new development tools that we can get ready now to be prepared for a different future? Mahender Vasandani from M Square Urban Design shared thoughts on these and other questions in an effort to start a dialogue among planners about where we go from here and how.

Food and Planning in New Orleans Among the many things New Orleans is famous for is its food. Increasingly, that food is locally grown. Vanessa Ulmer, the Policy and Advocacy Coordinator with the Prevention Research Center at Tulane University, joined Broadcast APA to talk about local food, fighting obesity, and citywide polices that increase food access. She also gives listeners tips on where to eat in New Orleans — all of which are included in the New Orleans Food System Guide, compiled by APA's Planning & Community Health Research Center.

Visiting Fellowship in New Zealand In 2008, Center Manager Jim Schwab, AICP, was invited by the Centre for Advanced Engineering in New Zealand (CAENZ), located at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, to serve as a Visiting Fellow, studying New Zealand hazards planning and offering consultation on national hazards policy. Schwab's trip lasted three weeks from July 25 to August 15, 2008, during which time he traveled the country, delivering seven different lectures and seminars, including presentation at the Australasian Natural Hazards Conference and to a joint meeting of staff members of the Ministry of the Environment and the Ministry of Civil Defense and Emergency Management. A year later, in October 2009, Kristin Hoskin, who had managed Jim's itinerary for CAENZ, visited APA in Chicago, where she delivered a presentation and was interviewed for a podcast.

Updates on government planning policy

New Book Sounds Death Knell for Suburbs Media Briefing Presentation CHICAGO — The suburbs are in a fragile state and it is only going to get worse. The recent foreclosure crisis has masked the true, underlying problems facing U.S. suburbs. These are basic structural problems that will not vanish with a global economic recovery. Foreclosing the Dream: How America's Housing Crisis Is Reshaping Our Cities and Suburbs, published by the American Planning Association (APA), is the first book to look beyond financial manipulations to understand what truly fueled the foreclosure crisis and what it means for the future of suburbs and cities. According to the book: Higher rates of foreclosures in new suburbs and exurbs compared to lower rates in cities show that the American Dream is changing. The number of households in the 30 to 45 age group has declined by 3.4 million since 2000 and this has reduced demand for large suburban houses. The stereotypical "white flight exodus" from central cities has been reversed in most large metropolitan areas. Changing demographics and consumer attitudes coupled with political support for compact development, transit investments, and awareness about climate change all point to a dramatic shift in development patterns. Author William H. Lucy, AICP, is an urban planning professor at the University of Virginia. He is the first to examine the full impact of foreclosures in conjunction with other factors such as the influence of politics, household demographic changes, household income, and national housing policies to generate a comprehensive view of what is happening in our communities. In examining the foreclosure rates in 236 counties in the 35 largest metropolitan areas, combined with housing and income characteristics in each of the 50 states, Lucy provides a more complete understanding of the housing and financial crisis that began in 2008. Lucy's research shows that central city improvements throughout the past decade illustrate a pattern of growing revival. "These shifts will lead to shorter commutes to work and less carbon dioxide emissions," Lucy said. "But these same shifts will lead to more poverty in suburbs and more financially stressed suburban governments." The ongoing deterioration of the suburbs was actually masked by the housing price run-up that occurred between 2002 and 2006. And the foreclosure crisis has only served to accelerate the suburban deterioration. "Two key questions will be answered during the next decade," Lucy said. "Is 2010 the threshold for rapid city revival in coming decades just as 1950 was the threshold for rapid suburban development during the next half century? And will developers, lenders, and government officials facilitate these positive changes in housing markets while also adapting to support declining suburbs?" "Foreclosing the Dream is a warning for communities and elected officials. Lucy identifies a fundamental change in our communities that will only continue to gain momentum. His research illustrates that the foreclosure crisis has greater implications beyond just revising our current lending practices," said W. Paul Farmer, FAICP, APA's Chief Executive Officer. The book includes specific data for the following 35 metropolitan areas: Atlanta; Baltimore; Boston; Buffalo; Charlotte; Chicago; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Columbus; Dallas; Denver; Detroit; Houston; Indianapolis; Kansas City; Las Vegas; Los Angeles; Miami; Milwaukee; Minneapolis/St. Paul; New York; Orlando; Philadelphia; Phoenix; Pittsburgh; Portland, OR; Sacramento; San Antonio; San Diego; San Francisco; Seattle; St. Louis; Tampa/St. Petersburg; Virginia Beach; Washington, D.C. Foreclosing the Dream is available through APAPlanningBooks.com for $52.95 ($34.95 for APA members). ISBN: 978-1-932364-78-1. Paperback: 208 pp. Lucy is the Lawrence Lewis Jr. Professor of Urban and Environmental Planning at the University of Virginia. Foreclosing the Dream is the first book to examine the broader context of the foreclosure crisis in terms of causes and effects, including influences of household demographic changes, household income, national housing policies, and national politics on the changing prospects of cities and suburbs throughout the United States. Lucy also is the author, with David Phillips, of Tomorrow's Cities Tomorrow's Suburbs, which was published by the American Planning Association in 2006.

Post-Katrina Demographics Estimating the population of New Orleans was a tricky business in the months — and years — after Hurricane Katrina. With the 2010 Census coming up, planner Rafe Rabalais talks about what the official decennial count means for the city, shifts in local demographics since the August 2005 storm, and the tool his company developed to track the resettlement of New Orleans.

Beyond Burnham February 23, 2010 Since the publication of Burnham and Bennett's Plan of Chicago in 1909, powerful institutions such as the Chicago Plan Commission and Regional Transportation Authority, among others, have emerged to promote metropolitan goals in the Chicago region. In their new illustrated book on the topic, Joseph Schwieterman and Alan Mammoser show how the human face of planning appears in the interplay between public officials and citizen advocates. Schwieterman and Mammoser shared how a century of visionary planning for metropolitan Chicago has shaped the region's identity and character. From Daniel H. Burnham and Edward H. Bennett's famed 1909 Plan of Chicago to the push for superhighways and airports to battles over urban sprawl, they described the big personalities and the "big plans" they espoused.

Data Mining on Federal Websites January 26, 2010 Since the late 1990s, planners have grown to rely on the rapid exchange of information and enhanced data analysis tools enabled by sophisticated computing power. With this proliferation of information and technology, planners need practical strategies for making sense of electronic information. John Shuler, from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and Rana Salzmann, from APA, discussed how to use the Web to find relevant planning information efficiently and commented on how the Internet's reach has changed the practice of planning through the expansion of digital government services.

Green Community Energy (Part II) In this episode, listen to Green Community contributors Erica Heller, AICP, and Mark Heller, AICP.