American Planning Association

APA Boston Conference Preview: Bob Mitchell

APA Boston Conference Preview: Peter Lowitt

APA Boston Conference Preview: Jennifer Raitt

Tuesdays at APA: Community Reinvestment and the Foreclosure Crisis

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...

Tuesdays at APA: A Template for Redeveloping Chicago's Neighborhoods

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 structu...

The Paradox of Urban Space: An Interview with Sharon Sutton

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.

Tuesdays at APA: Cultural Resource Protection

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. Ge...

Tuesdays at APA: Siting and Permitting Wind Farms

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 includ...

Green Community: Conservation (Timothy Beatley and Patrice Frey)

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

Green Community: Density and Transportation (with F. Kaid Benfield, Fred Hansen, and Mariela Alfonzo)

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

Green Community: Energy (with Mary Pelletier)

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

Green Community: Introduction (with Susan Piedmont Palladino and Timothy Mennel)

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

Green Community: Health (with Carolyn Steel)

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

Tuesdays at APA: Urban Morphology

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 In...

[2010 National Planning Conference] The Dutch Dialogies: An Interview with Dale Morris and David Waggonner

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.

[2010 National Planning Conference] New Orleans, Moving Forward: An Interview With Stephen Villavaso, FAICP

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: Best Policy & Implementation Practices

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 Mitigration: Integrating Best Practices Into Planning

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).

Tuesdays at APA: Penny Wise, Pound Fuelish:New Measures of Housing + Transportation Affordability

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 Nei...

Tuesdays at APA: More Smiles, Less Miles

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 ...

Planning for a New Energy and Climate Future

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...

Tuesdays at APA: Chicago's Central Area Action Plan

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 sp...

[2010 National Planning Conference] "Clear As Mud": Planning for the Rebuilding of New Orleans

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.

Tuesdays at APA: The Evolution of Our Suburbs

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 a...

[2010 National Planning Conference] Food and Planning in New Orleans

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...

Hazard Mitigation in New Zealand: A presentation by Kristin Hoskin

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...

Quarterly Legislative & Policy Briefing (February 22nd, 2010)

Updates on government planning policy

Foreclosing the Dream (Media Briefing)

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 b...

[2010 National Planning Conference] Post-Katrina Demographics (with Rafe Rabalais)

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.

Tuesdays at APA: Beyond Burnham

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 s...