U.S. Interior Secretary Kenneth Salazar announced the approval of the Cape Wind project today: Cape Wind Associates, the developer, said it planned to begin construction of the 130 turbines about five miles off Cape Cod by the end of the year, even as the main opposition group announced that it would immediately file a lawsuit […]
Is Urban Planning Dead?
At the American Planning Association National Conference in New Orleans a couple weeks back, I participated in a session on the provocative question: “is planning dead?†The event was organized by the staff of the Colorado-based organization PlaceMatters. A small group met to discuss the question at an “unconference†session near the convention center. They […]
Social Media in Urban Planning
On Monday I participated in a presentation on Social Media in Planning at the American Planning Association’s annual convention in New Orleans. At the session, my co-presenters and I discussed example projects spanning community-based planning, transportation, and professional development. Afterwards, the attendees broke into small groups to discuss their own experience and thoughts about using […]
Open Government Reading List
I posted an open government reading list to CoLab Radio, a blog run by the MIT Community Innovators Lab. Suggestions or comments are welcome!
Who Needs ‘Centralized City Planning’? Everyone.
The always-interesting Witold Rybczynski has a provocative piece up on Slate arguing that the failure of government-led urban planning means that “in a democracy, a vision of the future city will best emerge from the marketplace.” I don’t disagree with his observation that private organizations and real estate developers have taken the lead in shaping […]
Planetizen Post: iPads for Planning
See my latest Planetizen post on how the iPad could be used for urban planning.
Happy Census Day
Although a majority of Americans have already returned their Census forms, technically today is the “Census Day” for the purposes of determining where people should be counted. How is your community doing? Take a look on the Census Bureau’s nifty participation rate map, where you can get a widget for the national participation rate or […]