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Planning: general 🌇 Random Planning Thoughts (and Photos) Deserving No Thread Of Their Own

Patrick Geddes, the biologist, sociologist, geographer, philanthropist and pioneering town planner, was born October 2nd 1854.

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What strange architecture

www.boredpanda.com

Architecture

How often do you stop to examine and adore the buildings surrounding you? Sure, not every one of them is worthy of attention, but some, both classic and modern buildings, can take your breath away. From cozy farmsteads to majestic modern superstructures, we've covered it all in our Architecture...
www.boredpanda.com www.boredpanda.com
 
Planit said:
What strange architecture

www.boredpanda.com

Architecture

How often do you stop to examine and adore the buildings surrounding you? Sure, not every one of them is worthy of attention, but some, both classic and modern buildings, can take your breath away. From cozy farmsteads to majestic modern superstructures, we've covered it all in our Architecture...
www.boredpanda.com www.boredpanda.com
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Pure craziness -- and pretty darn fantastic!
 
Maister said:
Footage of you wandering around town starts 15 seconds in.

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You're right on. I'd get off the train about 8a each day and walk to the northside of the Loop for a donut (actually crossing the same bridge of the river Newhart does), then wander south back to the conference location for 9:30ish sessions.

An urbanist's wet dream. :daydream:
 
My wife teases me because I can not turn off Planner Brain, especially while we are on vacation. When in Savannah we went to the City Museum and it talked about Oglethorpe and the original design. However, it noted that they don't know who actually did the design for Oglethorpe. He was just the one who hired the surveyors to lay it out on the ground.

What are your thoughts? Who do you think did the design?

Regardless, I have to applaud the City Planners for continuing the design with additional squares as Savannah grew.
 
A zoning/development code is a human construct. Therefore, we can make it do pretty much whatever we want it to do.
 
Planit said:
Pretty good article about building materials recycling in Amsterdam

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I love this idea and read about 1/3 of the article. Great stuff, Amsterdam! Now if we could just remember: the greenest building is one that's already built >> maybe then we could work harder on adaptive reuse and not having to tear the structures down in the first place (although Europe does an infinitely better job of this than we do, I suspect).
 
Online planning-related discussions that hit hard right now:

"Airbnb landlords are like “how come no one wants to book my house??” maybe it’s bc you evicted a family of 4, converted their home into a shoddy duplex, filled it with clearance bin TJ Maxx decor, and charge guests $200 for a cleaning fee, all bc you don’t feel like getting a job"​
​
"...Like “go to college and you’ll be set for life,” many people were sold on rental property ownership as a risk free path to financial independence. Now they have a vacant property, a frozen market, and a mortgage."​
​
"omg honestly i stayed at one of these last minute in pittsburgh over the summer and i swear the bed was literally just a big foam block from a foam pit."​

Ooof! So true! From:

 
Wannaplan? said:
Online planning-related discussions that hit hard right now:

"Airbnb landlords are like “how come no one wants to book my house??” maybe it’s bc you evicted a family of 4, converted their home into a shoddy duplex, filled it with clearance bin TJ Maxx decor, and charge guests $200 for a cleaning fee, all bc you don’t feel like getting a job"​
​
"...Like “go to college and you’ll be set for life,” many people were sold on rental property ownership as a risk free path to financial independence. Now they have a vacant property, a frozen market, and a mortgage."​
​
"omg honestly i stayed at one of these last minute in pittsburgh over the summer and i swear the bed was literally just a big foam block from a foam pit."​

Ooof! So true! From:

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The planner in me...

Oh no...is your little rental income flat because the market is oversaturated from lack of regulatory control? Oh no...

reactiongifs GIF
 
Santa Monica is seeing a big increase in housing projects - after years of NIMBYism, everything changed because the city failed to act:

slate.com

Santa Monica NIMBYs Made a Hilarious Screwup, and Now They Have to Build More Housing

Foiled by their own paperwork.
slate.com slate.com

This year, developers have applied to build another 4,000 apartments in the city of 91,000, including more than 800 set aside for low-income residents. How did the city get two decades’ worth of housing proposed in eight months? Last week, the Santa Monica planning manager revealed that the city had accidentally abolished its own zoning code for most of the 2022 calendar year. Oops.

Developers noticed. To take advantage of the oversight, they submitted plans for 16 new projects*, including one 15-story, 2,000-unit block for a low-slung commercial area around the light-rail Expo Line, according to Emily Sawicki at the Santa Monica Daily Press, which broke the story. On that site, builder WS Communities had previously planned to construct 183 units. (Several of the projects come from WS Communities, which submitted supersized versions of previously planned projects. At another site, for example, the firm could replace a planned 51-unit building with a 222-unit building.)

“This is not theoretical,” planning manager Jing Yeo told the Santa Monica City Council recently. “This is very real and it’s happening. These are projects that, as long as they include 20 percent on-site affordable or a 100 percent moderate [-income housing], we must approve those projects … The consequences are already in effect.”
 
Doohickie said:
Where is the water for those people coming from?
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All the water that's not being spent on irrigating turfgrass for yet more single family lawns?

More seriously, most MF infill tends to be pretty light on water consumption compared to the equivalent quantity of SF units, and even to some degree compared to the land area of the SF units it replaced. (I'd have to do some rummaging for the hard numbers, though.)
 
One of my main pet peeves is people doing things without permits. Getting a permit here is rather easy (in my years of experience and other places).

Now you're mad because we cited a violation. I'm mad because now it's got to be redone or fixed to work in code. It's extra hassle on your part and mine & neither on of us will be happy about it or with each other.
 
The 19th century Westward expansion in North America was the original ‘drive till you qualify’.
 
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‘A Marvelous Order’ Review: Battling the Power Broker
The opera, which premiered at Penn State, depicts the fierce conflict between urban planner Robert Moses and journalist Jane Jacobs.

www.wsj.com

‘A Marvelous Order’ Review: Battling the Power Broker

The opera, which premiered at Penn State, depicts the fierce conflict between urban planner Robert Moses and journalist Jane Jacobs.
www.wsj.com www.wsj.com

Now we have
a book, play, & opera
 
The local top employer announced their future in the community. They showed a map of neighborhood land holdings. The called it their "development strategy". It just occurred to me when major companies use this phrasing that it may be the deployment of unconscious weasel words that actually signal their understanding that there is much uncertainty in their future for the community. Why not just say "development plan"?

To me, saying you have a strategy indicates that you have an intent, but there are many contingent components that you haven't yet adequately addressed - positive public relations is the vibe.

Saying you have a plan indicates that you put in the heavy lifting - the vibe here is to communicate commitments to the community.

I'm not trying to be cynical. Throbbing Brain, what am I missing?
 
mendelman said:
Remember this Saturday (11/26/22) is Small Business Saturday, so get out there and buy stuff from your local small businesses.
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Do you know if the SBA retains a database of poorly run local small businesses? Around here, there are stores that lack certain customer-service oriented behaviors that have turned me off from local businesses. Said differently, do you know if the SBA awards local businesses certain quality and/or confidence ratings to encourage businesses to modernize and professionalize their staff to further encourage locals to shop locally?
 
Wannaplan? said:
Do you know if the SBA retains a database of poorly run local small businesses? Around here, there are stores that lack certain customer-service oriented behaviors that have turned me off from local businesses. Said differently, do you know if the SBA awards local businesses certain quality and/or confidence ratings to encourage businesses to modernize and professionalize their staff to further encourage locals to shop locally?
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I totally understand. I don't want to harp on local retailers, but there's one too many of them around here that have inconsistent or banker's hours, very unpolished or amateurish branding or decor, zero Internet presence, and the like. There's also the places with rude or indifferent staff, that people still patronize because of anti-chain sentiment, or because those businesses are seen as "institutions".

Also, there's the perception that all locatons of a chain business have common corporate ownership, as if they've never heard of franchisees. For example, there's a new French bakery / coffee shop that opened downtown here. It's owned by a family who immigrated here from South Korea. The bakery is part of a chain based in South Korea, with relatively few locations in the US. Still, some locals are outraged that an "out of town corporation" has dared to open among the mostly indie retalers and restaurants downtown.
 
Wannaplan? said:
Do you know if the SBA retains a database of poorly run local small businesses? Around here, there are stores that lack certain customer-service oriented behaviors that have turned me off from local businesses. Said differently, do you know if the SBA awards local businesses certain quality and/or confidence ratings to encourage businesses to modernize and professionalize their staff to further encourage locals to shop locally?
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Meme Think GIF
 
Dan said:
I totally understand. I don't want to harp on local retailers, but there's one too many of them around here that have inconsistent or banker's hours, very unpolished or amateurish branding or decor, zero Internet presence, and the like. There's also the places with rude or indifferent staff, that people still patronize because of anti-chain sentiment, or because those businesses are seen as "institutions".

Also, there's the perception that all locatons of a chain business have common corporate ownership, as if they've never heard of franchisees. For example, there's a new French bakery / coffee shop that opened downtown here. It's owned by a family who immigrated here from South Korea. The bakery is part of a chain based in South Korea, with relatively few locations in the US. Still, some locals are outraged that an "out of town corporation" has dared to open among the mostly indie retalers and restaurants downtown.
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Rolling my eyes at your outraged locals. :r:

The thing is: some businesses are great; some businesses are awful. Some are owned locally; some are owned by a corporation. There are businesses that I will frequent again and again -- because I love the way that they do business. I am a HUGE proponent of good customer service and I will loudly avoid places that can't do that. (Of course, keeping in mind the great resignation, supply chain issues, etc., etc., etc. that are out of the business owners' control.)

I am more likely to avoid chains and to give local shops my preference. But if the local shop doesn't cut it, I will avoid that too.
 
A work of fiction about the planning of a new national capital city in California, from the November 11, 1899 Buffalo Express. There's even a reference to zoning!

Arachne 1899-11-11 Buffalo Morning Express.jpg
 
From an article in Popular Science, some time in 1958.

1958 Popular Science drowsy drivers.png
 
Hot take: exactions should be done at platting time, not permitting time. (This way, you can't dodge things like AH exactions by proposing exurban SFR sprawl, while incremental-scale infill projects are exempt from them due to not requiring significant amounts of land assembly.)
 
What do you all think of this (admittedly click bait) article?


I bet most of us would have handled the situation a bit differently. They try to portray Oliver as a Good Guy, but what rational person thinks running to the media with your story of being Wronged is going to do anything but inflame everyone's passions and make the situation worse? If he would have cheerfully met his neighbor right out of the gate with survey in hand, a whole lot of grief could have been avoided.
 
As posted on Twitter
If someone detonated a bomb that destroyed a building, they'd be in prison for life.
If an urban planner destroys an entire district of its buildings, people, businesses, and life,
they retire with a pension, despite causing more damage than the bomber.

Commercial Street in Cairo Illinois at dusk
FlmTw-5X0AAq3-x
 
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