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LATEST NEWS
Brick high-rise apartment buildings in New York City
Study: Housing Crisis is About Affordability, not Supply
RECOMMENDED
Single-family homes in a suburban neighborhood in Florida.
New Florida Law Curbs HOA Power

The legislation seeks to cut down on ‘absurd’ citations for low-level violations.

RECOMMENDED
Multistory apartment building under construction.
New Tennessee Law Allows No-Cost Incentives for Affordable Housing

Local governments in the Volunteer State can now offer developers incentives like increased density, lower parking requirements, and priority permitting for affordable housing projects.

Planetizen Newswire Logo
The Planetizen Newswire is an email newsletter that gathers the most popular news and features from our website into a condensed, readable form in your inbox.
View All News
blogs icon
Blogs and Features
The latest blogs written by experts in planning.
Top Books icon
Top Books
An annual review of books related to planning.
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Planopedia
Clear, accessible definitions for common urban planning terms.
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Explore cities through an urban planning lens.
View All Exclusives
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Search for your next urban planning or urban design job, today.
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Reach Planetizen’s massive audience working in the built and natural environments.
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Career Guide
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Planetizen Courses
Sharpen your professional edge with access to over 300 courses on urban planning.
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Planning Commissioner Training
Ten courses on the essentials of citizen planning.
AICP Continued Education
Browse Courses available for AICP continuing maintenance (CM) credit. 
View Training Page
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School Directory
Search the definitive online directory of academic programs in urban planning and related fields.
Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs 7th Edition cover
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Top Schools
The Top Graduate Urban Planning Programs in the US.
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Promote your Planning Program
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Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs, 7th Edition
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Planopedia

Clear, accessible definitions for common urban planning terms.

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Aerial view of Le Corbusier-designed Cité Radieuse in Marseilles, France.

The City of Tomorrow

The City of Tomorrow is the English name given to an early work of urban design by Le Corbusier, who, throughout his career, evolved a concept of city planning firmly based in rationality and order.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure

Green Infrastructure

Green infrastructure harnesses nature to the benefit of the built environment as well as human and animal life.

Bike Parking

Transportation Demand Management

When a government creates incentives or disincentives to influence how and when you travel—that's transportation demand management.

Aerial view of red center bus rapid transit lane with bus on Van Ness Avenue in San Francisco, California

Bus Rapid Transit (BRT)

Combining elements of rapid transit with buses, BRT systems can provide faster, more reliable service at lower cost than rail-based transit.

A sign reads “State Fishery Area Public Easement Open to Fishing.” In the background is a stream surrounded by snow on the ground in a natural setting.

Easements

There are limits to the rights and powers associated with land ownership. Easements are a critical example of how property rights can be balanced with the needs of neighbors, the public, and other interests external to the control of property owners.

New York Apartments

The Housing Choice Voucher Program

Federal housing assistance vouchers subsidize the cost of rental housing, but high demand and long waiting lists mean many low-income families wait for years to access affordable housing.

Tenant Protections

Rent Control

Rent control, also known as rent stabilization, is a controversial policy tool used by the government to limit rent increases by landlords.

Two-lane street with pedestrian crossing island

Road Diet

A road diet ‘trims down’ multilane roadways by reallocating street space to uses other than car traffic, improving safety for pedestrians, encouraging multimodal travel, and enhancing overall livability.

Street in Paris Latin Quarter with row of bicycles, cobblestone street, and pedestrians

15-Minute City

The buzzword recently popularized by urbanists describes an urban form that dominated cities prior to the rise of autocentric planning.

Bus bench with "armrests" to prevent lying down

Defensive Urbanism

If you’ve ever noticed a public bench split in half by a metal bar, or a series of seemingly ornamental boulders blocking the sidewalk under a high-rise overhang, you’ve seen what is often described as defensive urbanism or ‘hostile architecture.’

Small boy riding bike on two-way paved bike trail

Bike Infrastructure

Safe and comprehensive bike facilities play a crucial role in keeping vulnerable road users safe, promoting biking as an everyday transit mode, and reducing carbon emissions and traffic congestion by encouraging a shift to more multimodal transportation.

Big Flat, California

Clean Water Act

The primary environmental law to regulate water pollution in the United States, the Clean Water Act, went into effect 50 years ago, on October 18, 1972.

Woonerf street with no curbs and trees in Lodz, Poland

Woonerf

The woonerf, a type of road design that encourages multimodal transportation and blends pedestrian and vehicle space, was born as a reaction to the car-centric development that began dominating American and European city planning in the mid-twentieth century.

Rendering of Culdesac Tempe development

Variances

Variances allow for development projects to deviate from the zoning code on a case-by-case basis—if the project developer can prove a unique economic or physical hardship.

Governors Island - South Island Rezoning

Zoning Amendments

Zoning amendments change the existing zoning code by either of two methods: changing the text of the zoning code or changing the zoning map.

SLOW painted on asphalt street

Traffic Calming

Traffic calming is a set of design interventions aimed at slowing or diverting car traffic to reduce the chance of crashes and improve safety for all road users.

View of buildings in Bangkok business district through extremely orange sunlight

Urban Heat Island Effect

Man-made surfaces and urban density contribute to higher temperatures, intensifying heat waves and posing a growing danger to public health.

Denver Region

Transect

In urbanism and planning, the term transect provides a conceptual framework for understanding how the scale of built environments can vary from place to place.

D.C. Land Use Map

Geographic Information Systems

GIS software, which combines location information with data about a range of other attributes, has become an indispensable tool for mapping and spatial analysis in urban planning and dozens of other fields.

Brooklyn, New York City

Redevelopment

Redevelopment includes all development projects that build new structures and land uses on a previously developed site. Understanding the nuances of redevelopment is critical for understanding the ways cities and communities change.

Side-by-side brick duplexes pictured on a sunny day.

Non-Conforming Uses

A non-conforming use is an existing building that would not be built under current land use regulations. While esoteric, the term is nonetheless critical to understanding the changes in development regulations over time.

Vacant home with foreclosure sign.

Land Bank

Land banks are public or private organizations that purchase, hold, redevelop, or otherwise manage foreclosed or abandoned properties with the goal of achieving community objectives such as affordable housing construction or public park space.

YIMBY

YIMBYs

YIMBY, an acronym standing for "Yes In My Backyard," describes advocates who support housing development as a response to the outcomes of restrictive zoning and planning policies.

Pop-Up Park

Tactical Urbanism

Tactical urbanism, one of the most common buzzwords in planning over the past decade, describes a variety of low-cost, incremental public realm design interventions.

"You are entering Jackson's downtown historic district" brown sign

Overlay Districts

A zoning overlay district superimposes an additional set of regulations over an existing zoning district, or multiple zoning districts.

San Fernando Valley

Induced Demand

“If you build it, they will come.”

A row of multistory, brick buildings in a small U.S. city, with retail uses on the ground floor and apartments above.

Incremental Planning

The concept of incrementalism can be applied to numerous fields and disciplines—one of which is planning. In the field of planning, the word incremental is usually used as an adjective to describe other planning words, such as code reform and development.

Public Comment

Planning Commissions

Planning commissions fill an influential advisory role in planning processes, maintaining citizen oversight of government planning powers and also providing a public forum for debate about the future of communities.

hand holding house key with house-shaped keychain and house in background

Supportive Housing

Supportive housing combines affordable housing with social services providers to help people experiencing homelessness, disability, or other hardships transition to permanent housing.

Portland Street

Automobile Dependency

Automobile dependency is a term used to describe households who must rely on private vehicles for everyday transportation, often due to a lack of safe pedestrian infrastructure, ineffective or absent public transit options, and sprawl.

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