Content about Urban studies and planning

This week a broad cross-section of America’s (and the world’s) best urban planners, designers, thinkers and doers will be gathering in West Palm Beach for the 20th annual Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU20). Even if you were unable to attend this event, you’ll have the chance to participate by following the CNU 20 buzz (Twitter hashtag #cnu20) of attendees as they work to craft hands-on solutions that will vitalize our neighborhoods, cities and towns.

Check out live streaming of CNU 20's - Looking Forward: New Urbanism and the New World. As the Congress for New Urbanism enters its third decade, economic, political, and environmental conditions pose serious challenges for the built and natural environment, as well as New Urbanist practice. Three of CNU's Founders will open this session with lectures addressing these challenges. Andres Duany will present the 21st century crises that call for New Urbanists to adapt, including slow development, the public process, suburban retrofit, agricultural urbanism, and the theology of metrics. Dan Solomon will discuss the tensions between new urbanism's roots in the nuanced complexity of the city and the reductive codifying of New Urbanist practice.

Several weeks ago, the office of Denver’s Mayor Michael Hancock launched a two-part community engagement strategy to gather public input on important financial issues facing the City of Denver.  A series of public forums put keypad polling devices in the hands of city employees and Denver residents to test the best   ideas for how to address the City’s financial challenges.  The Mayor also unveiled a new participatory budgeting tool encouraging public feedback on key topics relative to fixing Denver’s budget gap. The new interactive tool, Delivering Denver’s Future, gives residents a unique opportunity to weigh in on how to fix the city’s broken budget.

Congress for the New Urbanism (CNU) announced on Monday, its collaboration with Engaging Cities as a media partner for their upcoming CNU 20 conference in West Palm Beach, FL,  this coming May. Expert speakers include Richard Florida, Dr. Richard Jackson, Leon Krier, Elizabeth Plater-Zyberk, Peter Norton, Galina Tachieva, Andres Duany, among others. EngagingCities will be sharing written dispatches from CNU20, as well as new media on our site during and after the event.

The American Planning Association (APA) is gearing up for it’s 2012 National Planning Conference in Los Angeles next month (April 14-17), and the Technology and Planning Division have some great sessions set for this year. From what we’ve heard, this year’s program calls for sessions on 3-D simulation, performance measurement tools, as well as citizen engagement programs and GIS applications. Here is a list of sessions which intrigued us, and we wanted to share with you...

As demand for quality environments in our cities continues to increase, more attention is being paid to the opportunity presented by urban revitalisation as a sustainable alternative to broad scale urban renewal. Around the world urban revitalisation is being catalysed by housing, cultural, retail, infrastructure and city centre projects that spur on infill development, adaptive re-use and other local investment.

In the lead up to Christmas, a time of giving and community spirit, it seems only fitting we look at one of the big urban trends of 2011, collaborative urbanism. Also known as ‘tactical urbanism’, ‘do it yourself’, and ‘lighter, quicker, cheaper’, collaborative urbanism describes community activated place making. Its about community led revitalization and the way in which it starts locally but has the potential to impact on a global audience.

Design that considers geography has been going on since humans started designing. Ancient cultures built settlements in close proximity to water and with good mountain views; they designed cities to maximize shading and natural cooling; and they positioned themselves in proximity to natural resources and trade routes. For thousands of years, design considering nature was, well, just natural.

DCWEEK is a week-long festival in the US capital focused on bringing together designers, developers, entrepreneurs, and social innovators of all kinds.

Communities across the country are celebrating National Community Planning Month this October. The month long “event”, sponsored by the American Planning Association (APA), its members, chapters, divisions, and professional institute, was developed to recognize the vital role of planners and planning in communities throughout the U.S. At EngagingCities, we have been encouraged historically by the amount of participation we’ve seen with this celebration at a local level here in Colorado. We are excited to see what is in store for 2011’s celebrations around the nation.

When it came time to engage citizens in a recent Master Planning process, the City of Lowell, Massachusetts opted for an unorthodox approach: an interactive online game. In order to engage a diverse population, the city partnered with Emerson College researchers to debut a newly developed participatory planning tool for the first time in June 2011.