Planning and zoning officials have powerful influence over the future shape and land use of our communities.
Making sure we leave our children and grandchildren livable communities and a livable environment is reason to consider planning and zoning approaches that move toward sustainability.
Too often cities have scrambled to attract new businesses … from anywhere. But a different approach has started to take hold. It involves planting local economic seeds and nurturing them to be the new garden of opportunity.
During the AMPO (Association of Metropolitan Planning Organizations) conference the past two days, the three words I think I heard most often were Sustainability; Livability; and Walkability. What’s more all three of these were often tied in to another phrase: economic competitiveness.
A look at several projects in the Boston area highlighting the link between planning and food.
If your local economy were a ship and you were preparing for a voyage, what would you need?
Sustainability may be hard to define, but it’s increasingly being discussed by developers and local planning commissions. Observations from PCJ columnist Dave Stauffer.
Taking a close look at your local economic assets is the first step in putting together an economic development plan.
What role can a planning commission play in jump-starting the local economy?
How strong is your local economy? Is there a role for planning commissioners in addressing local economic development? The first of a series of short articles by Gwendolyn Hallsmith.
Communities throughout the country are see growing interest in sustainable development. Some ideas on how to take sustainability into account.
While Flint, Michigan, has received lots of negative attention in the media — in some ways becoming the poster boy of urban disintegration — what’s also clear is that there are many who are not giving up on Flint.
Instead of closing down its River Rouge assembly plant in Dearborn, Michigan, Ford Motor Company has reinvested it — with an emphasis on energy-saving technologies, including an enormous green roof.
I met with planners trying to deal with the large amounts of vacant land in Cleveland’s inner-city neighborhoods. Their approach to turn things around: implementing creative, green-oriented strategies.
It is logical that ecology should be integral to planning. The natural environment is the community’s birthplace. Terrain, soils and tree cover, underground water, surface streams, vegetation, and wildlife all form an interdependent unity of impact and adaptation.
