Talking Headways Podcast: Planning for Godzilla in SimCity

This week on the podcast we’re joined by Joe DiStefano of Urban Footprint.

We talk about Joe’s past work with Calthorpe Associates, where he did regional planning. Joe also talks about creating digital tools for big planning ideas, the importance of planners having information at their fingertips, and how planners should remind everyone that plans are about people.

ALSO ON STREETSBLOG

Talking Headways Podcast: Don’t Talk About Professors’ Parking Spaces

By Jeff Wood |
This week we’re joined by James Corless, CEO of Sacramento's regional planning agency. We chat about the Sacramento area and the connections between its urban and rural economies, his past working on federal transportation advocacy, how mid-sized cities are nationally important for providing jobs and housing, and why it’s kind of ridiculous to do 30-year long range regional transportation plans.

Talking Headways Podcast: Critiquing the Language of Planners

By Jeff Wood |
This week, Robin Rather of Collective Strength joins the podcast to talk about missteps in the planning profession - including how things go wrong with language. Robin shares how she got to thinking about urban issues and why she believes current planning practice is stuck in the 1990s. We discuss the often jargon-filled language the profession uses, taking a paragraph from Austin’s current zoning code rewrite to illustrate.

Talking Headways Podcast: The Urban Policy Translator

By Jeff Wood |
This week we’re joined by Shelley Poticha, director of NRDC’s Urban Solutions Program, who tells us about the organization's new programs like SPARCC and the City Energy Project. We get into federal policy like the Clean Power Plan and the story of how FTA and HUD were finally connected, and we talk about The Next American Metropolis, the 1993 book about transit-oriented development she wrote with Peter Calthorpe.

Can Columbus Get Its Sprawl Under Control?

By Angie Schmitt |
There’s a new study out examining the future of Columbus, Ohio, and the results are a little scary. This growing city in central Ohio has an Atlanta-like geography — no physical barriers on any side. And if current development patterns continue, Chris Bentley at the Architect’s Newspaper reports, the region’s physical footprint is expected to more than […]