Land Use

San Antonio Officials Remove Invasive Snails During River Walk Draining
As part of the biannual cleaning of the city's prized River Walk, San Antonio officials removed hundreds of invasive snails from the channel.

The Great Plains Real Estate Boom
Cities on the Great Plains were giving away land in recent decades in the hopes of attracting new residents. Now they have a different challenge: responding to a sudden, but still modest, spike in demand.

Lawsuit Challenges Zoning to Limit Church Soup Kitchens
Local residents of Brookings, Oregon say a local church's meal services during the pandemic were attracting crime and vagrancy, so the city passed a zoning ordinance that limited the number of days the church could serve meals to two a week.

Boise Poised To Revise Zoning Code
The city of Boise is soliciting public input on its plan to revise its zoning code to permit a wider variety of housing options.

Tim Keane, Atlanta Planning Commissioner, Headed to a New City
Tim Keane, who has led the Atlanta Department of City Planning since 2015, is set to take a new job in a new city.

Magic Johnson Park to Reopen in February
A much-needed park in South Los Angeles will reopen to the public after undergoing major renovations.

Chicago Seeks Public Input on Clark Street Improvements
The city is creating a strategy for improvements in the Clark Street corridor to improve the area's walkability and stimulate the local economy.

Maine Legislators, in Search of a Fix for Rising Housing Costs, Consider Zoning Reforms
The housing affordability crisis is a legislative priority in the Pine Tree State.

Development Streamlining Proposal Dies in San Francisco
The doomed effort was Mayor London Breed's third attempt to streamline development in the city.

$50 Billion 'Wildfire Risk Strategy' Targets the Wildland-Urban Interface
The U.S. Department of Agriculture in January announced an ambitious, and only partially funded, new plan to reduce wildfire risks for communities around the United States.

A Toxic Legacy in an Orange County Neighborhood
The contaminated soil and neglected infrastructure in Santa Ana's Barrio Logan community are a result of decades of land use decisions and willful disinvestment, one journalist writes.

World Planning Educators To Meet in Indonesia
The fifth World Planning Schools Congress this coming August, organized on the theme Planning a Global Village: Inclusion, Innovation, and Disruption, will step up cross-border movement of planning ideas and practices.

Santa Barbara May Scale Down Outdoor Dining Areas
The city will consider adjustments to its outdoor dining policy after the fire department expressed concerns about access for emergency vehicles.

Upzoning Leads to Sharp Growth in Construction in Bend
After Oregon legalized 'missing middle housing' in cities statewide, Bend, the first city to comply with the state law, has experienced a significant boost in mid-density housing construction.

What Is a Development Approval Process?
A development approval process decides whether or not to allow a proposed development project to proceed with construction. There is plenty of room for interpretation, both legal and political, about what a development approval process can or should entail.

Oregon Youth Activists Protest Highway Expansion
A group of young climate activists are demanding an end to traffic-inducing road expansion projects and a renewed commitment to sustainable, transit-oriented transportation.

Solar Farm Moratorium to End, Despite Local Concerns
Delaware County plans to amend its solar zoning ordinance and lift a moratorium on the construction of new solar farms that was implemented after local opposition stalled the project.

The Path to Hyperdensity
The federal government has an opportunity to make a generational investment in the country's infrastructure that could fundamentally shift the way we live and move around cities.

Massachusetts Gets Serious About Upzoning
A Massachusetts law aimed at reducing the state's housing shortage mandates zoning for multi-family housing in most eastern Massachusetts jurisdictions.

Blanket Upzoning: A Solution to Housing Pressures?
Mass upzoning could give developers and homeowners the flexibility to build new housing where it's most needed.
Pagination
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EMC Planning Group, Inc.
Planetizen
Planetizen
Mpact (formerly Rail~Volution)
Great Falls Development Authority, Inc.
HUDs Office of Policy Development and Research
NYU Wagner Graduate School of Public Service