American Planning Association

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 t

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 transporta

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

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 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.

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 spo

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-talk

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 inspir

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

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

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 com

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 y