Social / Demographics

Glasgow's High Mortality Rate and a History of Poor Planning
Decades of poor urban planning and policy decisions have contributed to "the Glasgow Effect," which has seen higher rates of mortality for Glaswegians compared to similar de-industrialized cities.

Mapping The Movement of *Some* Millennials
The in-migration of Millennials is largely driving the changes that American cities are going through. More specifically, it is the ones with college degrees who are driving the change. Where are they moving, and what is their effect?

Voters to Decide Future of San Francisco Homeless Tent Encampments
Unable to pass the measure themselves, four San Francisco Board of Supervisors approved a ballot measure for November that would let voters decide on the removal of tent encampments in the city providing that housing is offered.

Metropolitan Corridors Absorb Rural Counties
As urban economies continue their upward trajectory, residents of counties once considered rural are commuting to cities. This has had both negative and positive effects on the communities in question.

Record Number of People Displaced Around the World in 2015
The United Nations is calling for action in the face of a record number of people were displaced—more than half of all refugees around the world came from Syria, Afghanistan, or Somalia.

Only Three Cities Pass the 'Trilemma' Test
Good jobs, affordable housing, and quality of life rarely come in a total package. In fact, according to new analysis from the Oregon Office of Economic Analysis, only three cities in the United States combine all three.

How to Counter Argue 5 Common Myths About Gentrification
Not all issues are as simple as people would like them to be, but that's especially true regarding gentrification. A recent Washington Post article is helpful for arming your arguments with evidence in the ongoing debate about gentrification.

Are Ride-Hailing Services Complementing or Competing with Rail Transit?
A news report on Charlotte's Lynx Blue Line looks at whether ride-hailing services are complementing rail transit by providing vital first mile-last mile service or whether customers are forgoing the transit trip entirely. Ridership has been falling.

Photos: 60 Streets Called Martin Luther King
A photo series documents some of the many different U.S. streets named to honor MLK.
Did Amazon Really Just Create a Pop-up Homeless Shelter?
As cities around the U.S. scramble to figure out how to address the housing affordability crisis, one of them has now leaned on the benevolence of what some consider the least benevolent of them all.

New Promise Zones Include South Los Angeles
South L.A.'s inclusion in the Promise Zones program marks a shift in the way the federal government measures poverty.

What Millennials Want, and Why it Doesn't Matter
The debate about whether Millennials prefer urban or suburban misses a big, important point: what Millennials really prefer is possible in either setting.

Op-Ed: Jane Jacobs Wouldn't Recognize the Cities of Today
Without children at the center of activity, the urban neighborhoods of today offer little compared to the ideals expressed by Jane Jacobs, according to this strongly worded critique of contemporary urbanism.

Cities Facing Lawsuits Over New Homeless Crackdowns
As more cities attempt to crackdown on homelessness, legal fights have broken out as advocates for the homeless fight back against the criminalization of panhandling and camping in public.

Drinking Behind New Mexico's High Pedestrian Fatality Rate
New Mexico had the nation's highest pedestrian fatality rate in 2014. Alcohol was a factor in over half the pedestrian fatalities in New Mexico, while nationally it's a third. According to the Albuquerque PD, drunk pedestrians are primarily to blame.

Watch the Documentary 'Cleveland: Confronting Decline in an American City'
In May, the documentary film "Cleveland: Confronting Decline in an American City" was made available in full on YouTube.

Boston Looks to Artists in Cultural Plan Development
A program in Boston to "enliven and strengthen" the arts and creativity in the city's diverse neighborhoods employed artists to seek out and define how people interact with art in their community.

The Suburban Tale of Texas Growth
The state of Texas is expected to double its population between 2010 and 2050. Just how, though, is worthy of more scrutiny.

Is Portland the Next San Francisco?
Now that tech companies have "discovered" Portland, Oregon, longtime residents question whether the progressive city has done enough to protect them from displacement. Sound familiar?

Op-Ed: More Domestic Migration Needed in the United States
An op-ed in the New York Times makes a cogent case for increasing movement between states for self-betterment, specifically from high unemployment states to states like New Hampshire and North Dakota, and what policy changes would encourage it.
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Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
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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