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, ...
May 31, 2019
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 ...
Apr 30, 2019
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 ind...
Mar 29, 2019
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 red...
Mar 21, 2019
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 S...
Mar 09, 2019
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 ...
Feb 25, 2019
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 epidemio...
Dec 31, 2018
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...
Dec 14, 2018
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 pas...
Nov 30, 2018
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 floodpl...
Nov 13, 2018
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 Hazar...
Oct 25, 2018
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 ...
Oct 12, 2018
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 com...
Sep 18, 2018
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 hea...
Aug 29, 2018
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 f...
Aug 21, 2018
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 ince...
Jul 17, 2018
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 st...
Jun 22, 2018
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”) ...
Jun 14, 2018
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 ...
May 21, 2018
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 ne...
May 07, 2018
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...
Apr 17, 2018
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 Jarret...
Mar 29, 2018
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 Nor...
Mar 23, 2018
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.
Feb 28, 2018
"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 ...
Feb 27, 2018
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.
Jan 31, 2018
Courtney Kashima, AICP, interviews Eugenie Birch, FAICP in this special World Town Planning Day edition of the "People Behind the Plans" podcast series.
Nov 08, 2017
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.
Oct 27, 2017
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 p...
Sep 21, 2017
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 Com...
Aug 18, 2017
