Urban Planning

Behold, Streetsblog's brand-new podcast! In what we aim to turn into a recurring feature, Reconnecting America's Jeff Wood and I recently chatted about the week's news in livable streets, urbanism, and sustainable transportation. The topics are drawn from Jeff's excellent daily compendium of transportation and planning links, The Direct Transfer, and from stories we're tracking at Streetsblog Capitol Hill. It's a treat for me to get back to producing audio -- I was a radio reporter before joining Streetsblog.

When he settled on Miami as his designated spot to escape Toronto winters, urbanist Richard Florida said he expected “all young people with a lot of gel in their hair.” What surprised him was finding a pocket of baby boomer urbanites from cities like Washington, DC, who came to Miami for its arts, diversity and walkability.

He's a "top urban influencer." He promoted parking reform in his campaign to become Pittsburgh's next mayor. And on Tuesday, City Councilman Bill Peduto won the Democratic mayoral primary, making him something of a shoo-in for the city's highest office. (Pittsburgh hasn't elected a Republican mayor since the 1930s.)

Six weeks after my daughter was born, my midwife asked me if I was getting any exercise. I confessed I wasn’t. I hadn’t figured out a new routine that included exercise, my old activities weren’t baby-friendly, I just didn’t have the time, and I wasn’t up for anything high-impact.

So, how did Washington, D.C. -- widely perceived as one of the most expensive cities in the country -- end up topping a “most affordable” housing list?

Chris Leinberger wears too many hats to count – real estate developer, George Washington University professor, Brookings fellow – but he has one message: “Walkable urbanism is the future.”

Preceding the start of the Pro-Walk/Pro-Bike/Pro-Place conference this week, the Congress for the New Urbanism met at the Renaissance Hotel across from the Long Beach Convention Center to convene their annual CNU Transportation Summit. At the summit, CNU develops its transportation agenda, including new and existing projects. Having caught the new urbanist bug in Florida at CNU 20, I was eager to have another opportunity to both learn and contribute to their dialogue.

Cross-posted from Streets.MN.