What's New

July 2002

Airports

2000 Portland International Airport Master Plan. Portland, Ore.: Port of Portland, 2000.

Robert Mueller Municipal Airport Redevelopment and Reuse Plan. Austin, Tex.: City of Austin, 2000.

The City of Austin maintains a website about the redevelopment process for the airport.

Economic and Urban Policy

Keating, Larry. Atlanta: Race, Class, and Urban Expansion. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2001.

Atlanta, the city of Martin Luther King, Jr., remains one of the most segregated cities in the United States. Despite African American success in winning the mayor's office and control of the city council, development plans have remained in the control of private business interests. Keating tells a number of troubling stories. What the development of the Underground Atlanta, the construction of the Rapid Rail system (MARTA), the building of a new stadium for the Braves, the redevelopment of public housing, and the arrangements for the Olympic Games all have in common is a lack of democratic process. Instead, business and political elites ignored protests from neighborhood groups, the interests of the poor, and the advice of planners. Reviews may be found in the Winter 2002 issue of the Journal of the American Planning Association, and the Summer 2002 issue of Journal of Planning Education and Research.

Environmental Planning

How Green Is the City? Sustainability Assessment and the Management of Urban Environments. New York: Columbia University Press, 2001.

This book introduces "sustainability assessment," a new concept that aims to help in steering societies in a more sustainable direction, and applies this concept to cities. It deals with practical ways to reach a more sustainable state in urban areas through such tools as strategic environmental assessment, sustainability assessment, direction analysis, baseline setting and progress measurement, sustainability targets, and ecological footprint analysis. Reviewed in the September 2001 issue of Journal of Environmental Assessment Policy and Management.

Susskind, Lawrence E., Ravi K. Jain, and Andrew O Martyniuk. Better Environmental Policy Studies: How to Design and Conduct More Effective Analyses. Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 2001.

Considers the shortcomings of current approaches to policy studies and presents a pragmatic new approach to the subject. Reviewing five cases that are widely regarded as the most effective policy studies to have been conducted in the United States in the last few decades, the authors present a comprehensive guide to the concepts and methods required for conducting effective policy studies.

Growth Management

Blackwell, Angela Glover, and Heather McCulloch. Opportunities for Smarter Growth: Social Equity and the Smart Growth Movement. Washington, D.C.: Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities, 1999.

Article describes the implications of urban sprawl from an equity perspective and articulates why funders concerned with social equity should become involved in the emerging anti-sprawl, smart growth movement. The article highlights the synergy between the smart growth and community building movement: towards a new regional community building or "community-based regionalism" paradigm. Finally, it argues that funders have a critical role to play in this shift by recognizing and supporting a new metropolitan agenda.

Fulton, William, et al. Who Sprawls Most? How Growth Patterns Differ Across the U.S. Washington, D.C.: Brookings Institution, 2001.

The first national study to measure the consumption of land for urbanization compared to population change for every U.S. metropolitan area. It finds that, contrary to conventional wisdom, the West is home to some of the densest metropolitan areas in the nation. By contrast, the Northeast and Midwest are in some ways the nation's biggest sprawl problems because their metropolitan areas added few new residents, but consumed large amounts of land.

Projecting Land-Use Change: A Summary of Models for Assessing the Effects of Community Growth and Change on Land-Use Patterns. Cincinnati, Ohio: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, 2000.

Highways

I-75/Clark Road Commercial Highway Interchange Sector Plan. Sarasota, Fla.: Sarasota County Planning Department, 1991.

Historic Preservation

Economic Benefits of Historic Designation. Knoxville, Tenn.: Knoxville–Knox County Metropolitan Planning Commission, 1996.

Housing

Mayors National Housing Forum. National Housing Agenda: A Springboard for Families, for Communities, for Our Nation. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Conference of Mayors, 2002.

Millennial Housing Commission. Meeting Our Nation's Housing Challenges: A Report of the Bipartisan Millennial Housing Commission. Washington, D.C.: The Commission, 2002.

Open Space

Benedict, Mark, and Ed McMahon. Green Infrastructure: Smart Conservation for the 21st Century. Washington, D.C.: Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse, 2002.

Introduces green infrastructure as a strategic approach to land conservation that is critical to the success of smart growth initiatives. Green infrastructure is "smart" conservation that addresses the ecological and social impacts of sprawl and the accelerated consumption and fragmentation of open land. The report describes the concept and values of green infrastructure and presents seven principles and associated strategies for successful green infrastructure initiatives.

Planning and Zoning Legislation

Meck, Stuart, and Kenneth Pearlman. Ohio Planning and Zoning Law: 2002 Edition. Cleveland: West Group, 2002.

Population

Brewer, Cynthia A., and Trudy A. Suchan. Mapping Census 2000: The Geography of U.S. Diversity. Redlands, Calif.: ESRI Press, 2001.

Presents in dramatic, graphic fashion a key set of data from Census 2000, that once-a-decade head count of all U.S. residents. The data show the degree to which this nation of immigrants has become more ethnically and racially diverse than ever before.

Redevelopment

New Jersey Brownfields Redevelopment Update 2001 Trenton, N.J.: New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, 2002.

Stapleton: Where Denver Is Moving Next. Denver, Colo.: Forest City Development, 2002.

The developer has a website with photos, plans, and details of future development.

Urban Sociology

Florida, Richard. The Rise of the Creative Class and How It's Transforming Work, Leisure, Community and Everyday Life. [New York]: Basic Books, 2002.

"Few people provide greater clarity on the importance of place in the knowledge-driven economy than Richard Florida. The Rise of the Creative Class provides critical insights in how we can build 21st-century cities and regions around the emerging economy." —Robert D. Yaro, President, Regional Plan Association, New York

Discussed in the July 2002 issue of Planning magazine.

Social Capital and Poor Communities. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 2001.

Examines civic initiatives that have built affordable housing, fostered small businesses, promoted neighborhood safety, and increased political participation. At the core of each initiative lie local institutions — church congregations, parent-teacher groups, tenant associations, and community improvement alliances. The contributors explore how such groups build networks of leaders and followers and how the social power they cultivate can be successfully transferred from smaller goals to broader political advocacy.

Utilities

Cell Towers: Wireless Convenience or Environmental Hazard? Markham, Ont.: New Century Publishing 2000, 2001.

A discussion of the possible health issues surrounding cell towers. The bias here is towards the hazardous nature of wireless communication.