American Planning Association

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...

Rodney Harrell, a planner and AARP Public Policy Institute's vice president of Family, Home and Community, thinks the biggest policy problem we face is the siloing of planning issues — separating housing from transportation from economic development from health. This disjointedness negatively affects people across the lifespan, but these impacts will become even more pronounced as our nation gets...

You've probably heard the term "multigenerational," but what about "intergenerational"? Matthew Kaplan, professor of Intergenerational Programs and Aging at Penn State University, outlines what that means for APA's editor in chief Meghan Stromberg, and the two discuss some of the fascinating case studies in intergenerational programming from around the world. Matt also describes how the pandemic h...

As a watershed year comes to a close, Tamika Butler, Esq., founder and principal of Tamika L. Butler Consulting , joins host Courtney Kashima, AICP, on this episode of the People Behind the Plans podcast series. The result is a stirring, uplifting, and funny conversation on the issues facing everyone who works to undo society’s inequities. Tamika’s practice focuses on the built environment, equity...

When social justice planner Monique López, AICP, MCRP, MA, talks about her anti-racist, values-driven participatory planning and design firm called Pueblo Planning, she describes its work in no uncertain terms: “I still very much see this as an experiment in love … an experiment in justice. … And coming in with that particular mindset allows me to be flexible, allows me to be open-minded and open-...

The fiscal impacts of COVID-19 are forcing cities to significantly rethink their budgets and spending decisions. But when projected revenue shortfalls put most of the City of El Paso's scheduled capital improvement projects on hold, planners in this Texas border city saw an opportunity to rethink the capital improvement planning (CIP) and budgeting process and reprioritize projects using an equity...

When the coronavirus pandemic dramatically halted normal economic activity in March, many knew small business owners and their employees would not come away unscathed. But small businesses are critical to our communities, making up 44 percent of all economic activity in the United States. Thankfully, community planners are stepping up in big ways to find relief for these businesses — the lifeblood...

What do natural disasters and the coronavirus pandemic have in common? Quite a bit, in fact. Medical anthropologist Dr. Monica Schoch-Spana joins host Jim Schwab, FAICP, on this episode of Resilience Roundtable series to talk about the commonalities between these two types of events. Dr. Schoch-Spana is a senior scholar with The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, as well as a senior scienti...

New York City's response to COVID-19 required unprecedented creativity and collaboration among its city agencies. Bob Tuttle, director of the New York City Department of City Planning’s Capital Planning Division, comes on the podcast to describe to Ann Dillemuth, AICP, senior research and professional practice associate, how the division was asked to use its datasets and knowledge of city faciliti...

COVID-19 has underscored yet another reality that planners already knew: Broadband access — or reliable, high-speed internet access — is a necessity, not a luxury. APA's Sagar Shah talks with Anna Read, an officer for the broadband research initiative at The Pew Charitable Trusts, about the basics of the issue. Read clears up some common misconceptions about the digital divide and describes the wo...

As cities around the world address COVID-19 challenges, they're reimagining how they use policy tools to meet the needs of their residents. In Portland, Oregon, the City Council recently adopted a resolution that highlights the connections between equity, climate, and COVID-19 recovery. APA's Jo Peña sits down with Andrea Durbin, the director of Portland’s Bureau of Planning and Sustainability, an...

As a second-generation Australian and a globetrotter who's studied and worked in New York and Chicago, Samantha Choudhury understands how critical social bonds are to building communities that thrive. She and host Courtney Kashima, AICP, start off their conversation by examining how her parents' immigration to Australia from Bangladesh shaped how she plans for communities. The associate director a...

The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging planners around the country to rethink how they work with various shelter-in-place and social distancing guidelines. One particular hurdle is how to continue with planning commission and other board meetings to keep communities moving forward. Emily Mack directs the Department of Metropolitan Development for the City of Indianapolis, Indiana. She chats with APA...

The Planning magazine editors get together — virtually — to recap some of the stories from the April 2020 issue. First up are drive-thrus: In the article "Is Fast-Food Through With Drive-Thrus?" author Brian Barth talks about how good urban design and walkability just don't favor the car-centric fast food model anymore. But last month states and cities started closing bars and restaurants, limitin...

Boston is currently a hot spot for the new coronavirus. Like many municipalities across the country, it's taking unprecedented action to respond to the challenges brought about by the pandemic. Brian Golden, director of the Boston Planning & Development Agency (BPDA), joins APA's Roberta Rewers to discuss many of these tactics, including new responsibilities taken on by the city's planning staff....

With millions across the country now working remotely to curb the spread of COVID-19, cybersecurity and data protection issues are top of mind for just about everyone. Phishing attacks have increased. The term "Zoom bombing" has entered the lexicon. What should planners do to make sure their agency's data and communications are safe? APA's Jo Peña talks with Nupur Gunjan, a public sector analyst a...

This episode features a dynamic conversation between Planning magazine editor-in-chief Meghan Stromberg and Lisa Nisenson, vice president for new mobility and connected communities at WGI. The two discuss what e-commerce trends mean for land use and contactless delivery; they also review the major implications of the COVID-19 pandemic for online retail.

Hear from Matt Hoffman, immediate Past Chair of the Fayetteville, Arkansas, Planning Commission, about how the city continued — virtually — with its planning commission and other board meetings during the COVID-19 pandemic.

In this episode of the podcast series Cover to Cover, the Planning magazine editors review the contents of the March 2020 issue: from an interactive map from the US Department of Transportation that shows the linkages between transportation and the new Federal Opportunity Zones program, to the steps it takes to prepare a community for large-scale solar development, to a special "business of planni...

In this episode of People Behind the Plans, host Courtney Kashima, AICP, catches up with Traci Sanders of WXY Studio in New York. Traci serves as the director of civic impact for the multidisciplinary architecture, design, and planning firm. She and Courtney start off by exploring how Traci discovered the field of urban planning — the seed was planted during high school, when she split her time be...

In this episode of the APA Podcast, the Planning magazine editors sit down to recap the urban planning trends and ideas from the February 2020 issue. Featured topics this month include public transit's gender gap (and how to close it), the Texas Freedom Colonies Project, user-centered planning, and the rise of nighttime mayors.

In this episode of the Resilience Roundtable podcast series, host Jim Schwab, FAICP, speaks with Julie Dennis of OVID Solutions about her experiences working as both an independent disaster-recovery consultant and as a previous director of community development for the Florida Department of Economic Opportunity. Julie's vast experience in Florida saw her working in the Florida Keys when Hurricane...

This episode of the People Behind the Plans podcast series introduces listeners to CMAP executive director Erin Aleman, the first woman and first planner to head up the Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning. Erin knows about the challenges inherent in working in large jurisdictions, but she’s learned from her work that small actions can have a big impact. She and host Courtney Kashima, AICP, ge...

Welcome to Cover to Cover, a new series giving planners an insider look into the stories in APA’s Planning magazine. Each month editor Meghan Stromberg and associate editors Mary Hammon and Lindsay Nieman dive deeper into the topics covered in Planning. They introduce listeners to some of the contributors and other voices in its pages, talk about how it all came together, and otherwise give us the...

Hurricanes Irma and Maria hit Puerto Rico in September 2017. Maria, the more destructive of the two, devastated the island in myriad ways. It wiped out Puerto Rico's electrical grid, leaving 3 million people without power — the biggest outage in U.S. history. It caused $100 billion in damage, and recent estimates from Harvard University, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, put the nu...