American Planning Association

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" valuab

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.