Blogs

June 25, 2020

Preserving the Grass Root of Urban Agriculture

Uncovering JAPA: Does digital urban agriculture mean the end of small scale growing?

June 18, 2020

When Climate Resiliency Is More Than an Afterthought

Uncovering JAPA: Affordable housing and resiliency must coexist. How can low-income households weather the storm?

June 11, 2020

Sustainability Plans Can Be More Than Just Talk

Uncovering JAPA: Investing in a sustainability plan means investing in the future.

June 4, 2020

A Simple Path to Sustainable Transportation

Uncovering JAPA: Shared autonomous vehicles will be part of the future, but do we need them to achieve sustainable transportation?

May 28, 2020

Covenants, Codes, Restrictions, and Your Own Backyard

Uncovering JAPA: Explore the language of covenants, codes, and restrictions to learn the role homeowner associations play in regulating the aesthetic and ecological functions of yards.

May 21, 2020

Challenges to Ambitious Planning in a Shrinking City

Uncovering JAPA: Can planners overcome cultural, political, legal, and economic barriers to “smart shrinkage” strategies in shrinking cities?

May 14, 2020

Is Single-Family Zoning on the Way Out?

Uncovering JAPA: Is it time to give the ax to single-family residential zoning? Nine JAPA viewpoints argue the question from both sides.

May 7, 2020

A "Wheely" Good Way to Save Commercial Corridors

Uncovering JAPA: How do we bring back the commercial corridor? In Toronto, the answer might be more bikes and fewer cars.

April 30, 2020

Coping With Ethical Dissonance in Planning

Uncovering JAPA: Learn what research shows about the ways planners are responding to ethical dilemmas.

April 23, 2020

The Generalist Journal and Its Value for Planning

JAPA articles grapple with concerns of broad interest and make contributions that can transform the wider domain of knowledge.

April 16, 2020

Simplifying Coastal Planning for Small Cities

Uncovering JAPA: How can small coastal cities plan for climate uncertainty?

April 9, 2020

Building a Participation Ladder With Youth

Uncovering JAPA: What possibilities would we have if youth could participate more fully in planning? Read about three new rungs of youth participation.

April 2, 2020

Changing Climate Calls for Changing the Built Environment

Uncovering JAPA: Building water-efficient cities might let us stick to the rivers and lakes that we’re used to.

March 26, 2020

Painting a Richer Picture of Older Adults' Mobility Needs

Uncovering JAPA: Interviews, focus groups, and walking audits can be added to statistics to help create a full picture of the mobility needs of older adults.

March 19, 2020

Regional Planning Can Help With Environmental Impacts of Warehouses

Uncovering JAPA: How can planning help regulate the disproportionate concentration of e-commerce-related warehouse facilities in greenfield sites?

March 12, 2020

Locating Housing Affordability Amid Foreclosures

Uncovering JAPA: Planners may create communities more resilient to housing foreclosure by addressing location affordability.

February 27, 2020

An Urgency for Insurgency: Lifting Marginalized Voices

Uncovering JAPA: Neighborhood association insurgents successfully challenged planning in one Detroit neighborhood, and planners can support marginalized voices elsewhere.

February 20, 2020

The Hidden Cost in Housing Affordability

Uncovering JAPA: There is more to housing affordability than finding a place with a reasonable rent. What can planners do to promote energy efficiency and, more importantly, energy justice?

January 16, 2020

JAPA in the Information Age (Nerd Alert: Technical Details)

What is the role of the Journal of the American Planning Association in the information age? Editor Ann Forsyth looks at the new information landscape.

December 19, 2019

A Ladder to More Meaningful Community Participation

Uncovering JAPA: Arnstein's Ladder of Citizen Participation can't fix community participation, but it surely provides a space from which to start.

December 11, 2019

Revisiting Arnstein’s Ladder: Justice as Parity of Participation

Uncovering JAPA: How can planning toward participation have a transformative effect on social equity?

December 5, 2019

Noncitizens, Nonprofits, and Methods of Engagement

Uncovering JAPA: Three lessons from nonprofits in Los Angeles County can help planners build trust and representation for noncitizens.

November 21, 2019

Moving Beyond Citizen Control to Co-Production

Uncovering JAPA: Co-production offers what citizen control can’t — systems change — but the public sector still has a great role to play.

October 31, 2019

Missing Rungs in the Ladder of Citizen Participation

Uncovering JAPA: What happens when public participation is used to finesse existing plans and policies rather than provide opportunities to challenge them?

October 17, 2019

The View From Arnstein’s Ladder: The Promise of Community Control

Uncovering JAPA: Is community control — a shift of power from the government to the majority of the community — the way to address injustice faced by marginalized members of the community?

September 26, 2019

Research That Retrieves Lost Memories of Place

Uncovering JAPA: Engaging community members in storytelling can reveal forgotten heritage and draw new maps of the past.

September 19, 2019

Building That Well-Known Ladder of Citizen Participation

Uncovering JAPA: Sherry Arnstein's influential Ladder of Citizen Participation grew from her frustration with government ideas about power in the 1950s and 1960s.

September 12, 2019

Who Cares? Reimagining Planning as Caring

Uncovering JAPA: How can planners acknowledge and make use of all of their emotions in a productive way when engaging with the public?

September 5, 2019

Changing California's Way of Measuring Traffic Could Equal More Housing

Uncovering JAPA: Switching from Level of Service (LOS) measurement to Vehicle Miles Traveled (VMT) could streamline the development process in California.

August 29, 2019

Planners as Partners in Building Healthy Communities

Uncovering JAPA: What does it look like for planners to not simply involve communities but ensure they have agency and can lead?

August 22, 2019

No Eyes on the Street: City Officials and the Future of AVs

Uncovering JAPA: Cities have only dipped their toes in the water when it comes to regulating autonomous vehicles and their technology.

August 8, 2019

Are Bed Bugs a Planning Issue?

Uncovering JAPA: If cities want to attract new residents and planners want those residents to thrive, a coordinated response to bed bugs is necessary.

August 1, 2019

Zoning: The Cause and the Cure for High Housing Prices

Uncovering JAPA: Single-family restrictions, lot sizes restrictions, and parking requirements limit developers’ ability to build affordable housing. However, in this quandary, we may also find the solution.

July 25, 2019

Ride-Hailing Could Boost Mobility Beyond Rich, Urban Areas

Uncovering JAPA: Ride-hail services are used by a wide range of people around Los Angeles, suggesting that they might provide increased mobility in rural, suburban, and low-income areas.

July 18, 2019

Does JAPA Publish Articles on Methods? (Nerd Alert: Technical Details)

Does JAPA publish methods papers? The short answer is yes, but not all types.

July 11, 2019

JAPA Looks at Planning from International Perspectives

International topics have a substantial presence in the Journal of the American Planning Association — a role likely to increase in a globalizing world.

June 27, 2019

How JAPA Articles Get Published (Nerd Alert: Technical Details)

The Journal of the American Planning Association adheres to scholarly practices in choosing, editing, and publishing articles that address critical issues in planning practice.

June 20, 2019

What Makes a Good JAPA Article? (Nerd Alert: Technical Details)

What does it take to get an article accepted for publication in the Journal of the American Planning Association?

June 13, 2019

A JAPA Special Edition: The Enduring Legacy of David Godschalk

Uncovering JAPA: The latest edition of the Journal of the American Planning Association commemorates the life of professor, planner, architect, and JAPA editor David Godschalk, FAICP.

June 6, 2019

Kevin Lynch and the Shaping of Los Angeles

Uncovering JAPA: The Journal of the American Planning Association continues to highlight Kevin Lynch’s legacy and the ideas in his book The Image of the City. Learn more about his imprint on Los Angeles.

May 30, 2019

Mental Maps Still Matter in the Age of GPS

Uncovering JAPA: Revisit Kevin Lynch's 1960 book The Image of the City and find relevance and new insights in his ideas about cognitive mapping.

May 23, 2019

40 Years Ago: Neil Smith, Gentrification, and the Flow of Money

Uncovering JAPA: In 1979, Neil Smith reconsidered the foundations of gentrification, pinpointing the flow of capital that continues to reshape city centers today.

May 16, 2019

Designing the Danceable City

Uncovering JAPA: Caroline Chen explores the potential for tension between the ways that planners and government envision a public space and how people actually use it.

April 17, 2019

50 Years of Denise Scott Brown’s Vision for Socially Responsible Design

Uncovering JAPA: In 1969, architect Denise Scott Brown wrote in JAPA about the difficult balance between the urban designer's professional expertise and the public's desires. That discussion continues today.