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 planners, we spend too much of our time designing those places away, creating guidelines to […]

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 Debra Washington, Executive Director of the Tenth Street Housing and Community Developers in Dallas, Texas […]

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 challenge the staid and push the boundaries of professional practice. We have an active editorial […]

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 of democracy, participation, planning, and youth. In the past decades the process of planning has […]

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 of the groups working on post-September 11 issues. Planners Network will explore and debate these […]