American Planning Association

Linking Communities Together Through Innovative Regional Transportation Planning May 12, 2015 Metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) and regional planning councils are in the midst of a wave of innovative practices in how they work with communities to create long-range plans and how they work with local jurisdictions to implement land use, transportation and development decisions that support...

2014 AICP Symposium - Originally Recorded on October 29, 2014 at the National Building Museum "Housing Equity and Healthy Housing Choices" Featuring: Carol Payne, Director, Baltimore Field Office of the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Derek Hyra, Associate Professor, Department of Public Administration and Policy, American University Jonathan Wilson, Deputy Director, National Cen...

On this episode, APA’s Emily Pasi talks with APA member Brad Klamer of the Sewerage and Water Board of New Orleans about the actions the City of New Orleans is taking to create a more water resilient, green and educated community. We’ll explore what cities New Orleans is looking to as models in resiliency planning and how the City is learning to live with water.

February 24, 2015 This talk drew upon lessons from the National Neighborhood Indicators Partnership (NNIP), a collaboration of the Urban Institute and organizations in 35 cities. NNIP partners help local actors use neighborhood data to improve communities through policy, planning, and advocacy. From her experience in NNIP, Kathryn Pettit of the Urban Institute discussed the types of information in...

APA interviews Rodger Lentz, AICP, Chief Planning and Development Officer for the City of Wilson, North Carolina and Will Aycock, General Manager of Wilson's Greenlight Community Broadband. They discuss the city's recent successful petition with the FCC and how the issue of municipal broadband will continue to be important for planners.

Pete Pointner, FAICP, former board member of the Historic Pullman Foundation in Chicago discusses the history of the Pullman neighborhood and its recent proclamation as a National Monument by President Barack Obama.

Tuesday, November 18, 2014 Transit-oriented development (TOD) is defined by the Regional Transportation Authority (RTA) of Northeastern Illinois as moderate to high-density, mixed-use communities generally located within a half-mile radius (10-minute walk) of a rail or bus station designed to maximize walkability and transit access. Interest in TOD is driven by its ability to reduce traffic conges...

Climate risks and sustainable growth are shared responsibilities — engineers, architects, planners, and developers are uniquely placed to improve the built environment. Sustainable development can both reduce emissions and cities' vulnerability to climate change and many impacts can be avoided, reduced, or delayed. Cities have the right density, economic conditions, and geographic scale for effici...

Private Capital, Public Good September 28, 2014 National Building Museum Washington, D.C. Featuring Guest Speaker Congressman John Delaney and a panel discussion with Ben Hecht, CEO of Living Cities, John Rahaim, Planning Director of the City and County of San Francisco, and William Anderson, FAICP, President of the American Planning Association Today's fiscal and political realities make private...

September 23, 2014 The Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP) projects a population increase of 1.96 million people and 1.24 million jobs in the Northeastern Illinois region by the year 2030. And the cumulative impact of planning decisions throughout the region will determine the degree to which the built environment will satisfy the broad objectives of (1) meeting human needs efficiently...

August 26, 2014 Until recently, climate change has correlated to polar bears and melting ice caps — heart rending, but safely distant. Yet climate-related extreme weather, combined with urban development, is starting to show its force, as realized by the severe droughts in California and the misery caused to millions of home owners and businesses as a result of urban flooding. With these impacts c...

July 22, 2014 APA's Community Planning Assistance Team (CPAT) initiative provides pro-bono planning assistance to communities with a demonstrated need and a lack of planning resources and expertise. Each CPAT pairs a multidisciplinary team of expert planning professionals from around the country with community members, key stakeholders, and relevant decision makers to foster community education, e...

June 17, 2014 Many contemporary conversations about sustainable design and development emphasize walkability. But, in terms of the potential effects of walkability on carbon emissions, it's important to separate fact from fiction. While there is no argument that walking contributes to health, pedestrian-friendly districts and neighborhoods may not be enough to significantly reduce vehicle miles tr...

May 20, 2014 Emerging manufacturing technologies, such as 3-D printing, promise to revolutionize the way things are made. Will they also revolutionize the spatial pattern of metropolitan development? Could these technologies lead to a radical decentralization of manufacturing through the proliferation of artisan-type shops within the next decade? In this program, Howard Wial, from the University o...

April 22, 2014 As one of the largest single land uses in our municipal "footprints," parking deserves more attention than is typically bestowed upon it. Besides encouraging auto use, having an excessive supply of parking influences the character, form, function and flow of our communities. It makes walking and bicycling unpleasant and unsafe, it adds to flooding and pollution problems, and it make...

March 18, 2014 Both theorists and practitioners see design standards as shaping the "look" of the community and built environment over the long run — with significant underlying ideology. Planning professionals may view design guidelines and review processes as useful tools to communicate local preferences and resolve issues. And, design standards and form-based codes have become powerful branding...

The Missing Metric March 4, 2014 With the multiple crises of municipal insolvency, climate change and citizen pushback against government regulation at all levels, it makes sense to consider a new "balance-sheet" approach to granting development approvals. Such an approach would screen for more compact, high-value development that would pay back government's up-front infrastructure investments on...

February 25, 2014 The Calumet Region of Indiana and Illinois at the southern end of Lake Michigan has great ecological significance, cultural diversity, and economic might but is now grappling with questions of regional direction in the wake of widespread deindustrialization. The idea of designating the Calumet as a National Heritage Area grew from a 1998 feasibility study by the National Park Ser...

January 28, 2014 The HUD Choice Neighborhoods Initiative employs a comprehensive approach to neighborhood transformation through the revitalization of distressed public housing and the creation of economic, social, physical, and educational initiatives. Through this initiative, planners and community groups are working to turn distressed housing and long neglected neighborhoods into viable and sus...

Authors Jon B. DeVries and D. Bradford Hunt discuss the state of planning in the Chicago region and their book Planning Chicago.

January 7, 2014 For the past three years, APA has been working in Latin America to promote urban planning. The most recent grant from the U.S. Department of State's Energy and Climate Partnership of the Americas has focused on four innovative housing and community development demonstration projects in Bolivia, Brazil, Mexico, and Peru. This presentation explains the background of the region's plan...

Immigration is woven into American history. But what about its future? Each year APA's professional institute, the American Institute of Certified Planners, hosts a fall symposium on a timely topic in planning. As federal legislators debate immigration reform, this fall's symposium looks at how immigrants affect the economies and cultures of the cities where they live and work. Hear regional persp...

November 12, 2013 Across the country, hundreds of communities have embraced Complete Streets policies as a way to foster safer streets that serve everyone, not just drivers. But individual projects and general policies aren't enough: transportation agencies often struggle to reform decades of rules, practice, and politics that prioritize cars. Barbara McCann, founding director of the National Comp...

November 19, 2013 A growing number of cities across the country have begun to acknowledge their waterfronts as valuable community assets through plans, capital investments, and development regulations. The Cal-Sag Channel and Little Calumet River wind through the ecologically rich, but economically challenged Calumet region in Chicago's south suburbs. The region has received attention lately throu...

October 22, 2013 The American mobilization for World War II is famed for its industrial production; less well known is that it was also one of the greatest urban planning challenges that the United States has ever faced. Although Americans tend to think of World War II as a time of national unity, mobilization had a fractious side. Interest groups competed for federal attention, frequent — sometim...