Planning at the Frontline: Notes From Israel

By Oren Yiftachel There are few societies in which urban and regional planning has been so central to nation-building and state policy as Israel. Over the years, Israeli planning has been a pivotal activity for reshaping the landscape according to…

Categories: Fall 2002

Following Rosa Parks: Montgomery Bus Riders Organize

By Eugene J. Patron People in Montgomery, Alabama will tell you that as much as the city likes to see itself as part of the “New” South, local politicians have been slow to give up their old, dirty tricks. For…

Categories: Fall 2002

Toronto: Car Culture Is Alive and Well

By Janice Etter In the last few years, Toronto’s newspapers have been full of references to “gridlock” as the city’s major transportation challenge. Letters to the editor–mainly from car drivers–rant about the amount of time it takes to travel around…

Categories: Fall 2002

Transportation Equity and Environmental Justice

By Rich Stolz West Harlem Environmental Action (WE ACT) has fought for years to mitigate the high concentration of bus depots in this New York City neighborhood. Diesel exhaust has been linked by researchers to asthma and cancer, and WE…

Categories: Fall 2002

The Costs of Auto Dependency

By Lisa Schreibman We are paying dearly for the American love affair with the car. We pay through taxes and out of our pockets. The environmental costs are staggering, and the toll in deaths and injuries is comparable to the…

Categories: Fall 2002

Diversity and the Planning Profession

By Leonardo Vazquez, PP/AICP A friend of mine, a terrific planner in the private sector, gets called in on jobs from public sector clients and private sector colleagues who want him to join their team. He is one of the…

Categories: Summer 2002

Cracks in the Foundation of Traditional Planning

By Barbara Rahder Who is a “real” planner? What makes one person a “real” planner and another person not a “real” planner? How is this decided and by whom? What are the common expectations of students entering planning programs (or…

Categories: Summer 2002

New Urban Planning for Neighborhood Revitalization

By Jennifer Hurley I became interested in planning because I wanted to fight poverty, and I saw that poverty and the physical environment were tied together. I was also concerned with protecting the natural environment and preserving quality architecture. I…

Categories: Spring 2002

The Narrow Base of the New Urbanists

By Michael Pyatok New urbanism has been aggressively marketed within the last decade by “boomers” who came of age professionally in the 1990s, disenchanted with the negative physical and social consequences of the sprawl and urban renewal they had witnessed…

Categories: Spring 2002

Teenagers Show Planners How It’s Done: Build Your Own

By Fernando Marti Perhaps you remember hanging out after school, searching out those empty lots, abandoned parks, or downtown plazas with their concrete benches? They were the real playgrounds and obstacle courses of our adventurous minds. Perhaps now, as urban…

Categories: Winter 2002

Townview, Texas: A High School Adoption Program

By M. Teresa Vázquez-Castillo (This is a story about a group of planning students whose semester-long project became a powerful tool for change when they organized a dynamic one-day program involving young people in a gentrifying neighborhood in Texas.) When…

Categories: Winter 2002

The Future of PN

by Tom Angotti I agree with Chester Hartman that Planners Network’s development in recent years has been healthy. PN is increasingly recognized as a progressive voice in planning. The newsletter has evolved into a magazine with lots of contributions that…

Categories: Winter 2002

Involving Youth in Planning: The Progressive Challenge

By Ann Forsyth How can children and youth have a voice in planning? What are the responsibilities of planners to incorporate children and youth in their activities? This issue of Planners Network features a number of articles about these issues…

Categories: Winter 2002

Planning After September 11: The Issues In New York

By Peter Marcuse The following paper was drafted as the basis for discussion at a series of meetings planned by New York City Planners Network. It reflects the concerns expressed by Planners Network members who have been involved with some…

Categories: Winter 2002

The Origins and History of PN

By Chester Hartman In 1970, I moved from the East coast (Cambridge) to the West coast (San Francisco). While it was, for me, a very satisfying change of venue, as a lifelong Easterner (seventeen years in the Bronx, followed by…

Categories: Winter 2002