The U.S. Social Forum: Major Success for Networking

By Peter Marcuse The U.S. Social Forum in Atlanta this July was a major success. There were some 10,000 people in attendance, 951 workshops and four plenaries, along with lots of culture, tents, networking and solidarity. It was amazingly grassroots.…

Categories: Fall 2007

Israel’s Wall in Palestine: Control, not Security

By Gary Fields In 1989, the Berlin Wall fell and soon after that South African apartheid crumbled. At the time it appeared that such systems, with their landscapes of walls and practices of separation, would be consigned to historical memory.…

Categories: Fall 2007

Civic Duty: From Neighborhood Watch to ‘USAOnWatch’

By Marilena Liguori On November 8, 2001 and in the wake of 9/11, President George W. Bush called on all Americans “to serve by bettering our communities and, thereby, defy and defeat the terrorists.” During the State of the Union…

Categories: Fall 2007

Networked Security in the City: A Call to Action for Planners

By Matt Hidek Since the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the United States government has developed defensive strategies to protect its cities through a complex web of networked security initiatives. As part of the “Global War on Terror,” the Department of Homeland…

Categories: Fall 2007

Planning and Neoliberalism: The Challenge for Radical Planners

By Kanishka Goonewardena The “real” planner must be a radical planner, planning for social justice and social change. In order to do this type of planning today, the hegemony of neoliberalism must be contested and defeated. What is neoliberalism? Neoliberalism…

Categories: Summer 2007

Developing Sustainable Housing: Moving Beyond Green

By David A. Turcotte The United States has almost 90 million residential structures. While few have been built in a sustainable manner, we are nevertheless beginning to see more interest in green or environmentally sustainable housing. Most discussions of sustainable…

Categories: Summer 2007

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by Ron Shiffman I really liked Marie Kennedy’s definition of transformative planning. From the very beginning in our work at the Pratt Center we learned from the communities that we worked with. We learned early on that it wasn’t just…

Categories: Spring 2007

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By Elizabeth Yeampierre It is not true that if the major environmental organizations had addressed the justice issue there would not be an environmental justice movement. Environmental justice not only speaks to the disparate impact of environmental burdens in our communities,…

Categories: Spring 2007

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By Romel Pasqual The future of advocacy and progressive planning is bound up with what we did in the immediate past and what we are doing now. We are making the future right now. It’s happening on the ground, in…

Categories: Spring 2007

Advocacy and Community Planning: Past, Present and Future

By Tom Angotti The term advocacy planning was coined by Paul Davidoff in his famous 1965 article and is today required reading in planning schools throughout the nation. But to many students today, advocacy planning is a quaint and outdated notion,…

Categories: Spring 2007

Rebuilding and the Right to Return

By Anna Livia Brand While Katrina has faded from major news coverage, at least half of New Orleans residents are still displaced. The struggles for their right to return to New Orleans highlight powerful issues of social and spatial justice.…

Categories: Spring 2007

Eighteen Months after Katrina

By Bill Quigley Each morning, Debra South Jones drives 120 miles into New Orleans to cook and serve over 300 hot free meals each day to people in New Orleans East, where she lived until Katrina took her home. Ms.…

Categories: Spring 2007