Booked on Planning

In our very first live podcast recording we sat down with author Ilana Preuss to discuss her new book “Recast Your City: How to Save Your Downtown with Small-Scale Manufacturing”. The book was released during the height of the Pandemic, but the problems we saw with shrinking retail, empty storefronts, and closing businesses was a long time coming. In this episode Preuss explains why the old model...

The assumptions and approaches that go into building and managing America’s transportation system are wrong. Author Charles Marohn explains the issues as he sees it from an engineer’s perspective who also happens to have a background in planning as well in his book “Confessions of a Recovering Engineer”. We can spend a lot less on transportation, get places quicker, and have better places to live...

We turn on a light switch or run a faucet every day without thinking about how it works. Without the electric grid, a very complex but outdated system, we would not be able to do either. In this episode, we discuss Gretchen Bakke’s book, The Grid: the Fraying Wires between Americans and our Energy Future . We are reaching a critical breaking point with our archaic system of delivering power to hom...

Over 50 years later Ian McHarg’s seminal book Design With Nature is still teaching us how to plan with nature, not against it. “We design with nature, the with is very important.” We are joined in this episode by Frederick Steiner, co-executive director of the Ian L. McHarg Center for Urbanism and Ecology. We dive deep into the parallels McHarg makes between space and the importance of understandi...

What defines an ethical planning practitioner? Is it okay to omit race-specific population data because the mayor said to do it? Should you leave studying for ethics until the very end of preparing for AICP? How should we approach social media without getting into trouble? These questions and more are answered in this episode with APA’s ethics officer Jim Peters as we talk though the book the Ethi...

"The comprehensive plan isn’t a thing it’s a process. It’s important to have the document, but recognize it is not finished and it’s a process that takes management." Community planning,  how we ensure our communities grow and develop responsibly, is grounded in the comprehensive plan. In this episode we talk with author Eric Damian Kelly about his book, Community Planning: an Introducti...

In this episode we were joined by author Michael Brooks to talk about his book Planning Theory for Practitioners. Despite being retired for seventeen years now, Brooks had much to share about the planner’s role in city development. If you thought the book was about spatial organization theories like Hoyt’s Sector Theory or Burgess’ Concentric Zone Theory you are mistaken. Planning theory in this c...

In this episode we were joined by Randall Arendt, author of Rural by Design, to talk about his book and the importance of focusing on good design in our communities. While the title evokes an image of the countryside and small villages, Rural by Design covers communities of all shapes and sizes. During our conversation we discussed conservation subdivisions, affordable housing, density, and more....

Booked on Planning is a podcast where the cohosts interview a variety of authors to dive deep into the books that have shaped the field of planning and urban design. In just 30 minutes every two weeks you will glean insights on diverse topics such as rural planning, transportation, community plans, sustainability, and so much more. Booked on Planning will not only summarize the key points from the...