The Planning in Australia subforum is the newest addition to the Cyburbia Forums. Discuss planning issues unique to Australia, planning systems used in Australian states, Australian planning organizations and professional planner certification, and other topics related to planning in the Land Down Under.

Foreclosure Crisis (http://www.cleveland.com/foreclosure/) is a series of articles from the Cleveland Plain Dealer that documents how the recent credit crisis has affected Northeast Ohio; a region among the hardest hit in the country by foreclosures. The site also includes an index of other foreclosure-related stories from the Plain Dealer.

From Cyburbian Plan-it: I have been doing research on policies and regulations to protect areas that are designated as Industrial on our Future Development Map from non-industrial (residential) incursion. This has the impact of inceasing land values due to speculation and placing future residents and future/existing businesses in a potentially adversarial relationship.

I have noticed San Francisco, Seattle, and Chicago have looked at this issue and have developed policies and programs to remediate the situation. Does anyone else done any research, policies, or programs that address this problem who would not mind sharing? Thanks!

When paired with vintage images of the 19th and 20th centuries, Arizona photographers Allen Dutton and Paul Scharbach's modern-day images reveal the changes that have shaped the state's landscape during the past 100-plus years. They searched the state to locate the precise spots from which to rephotograph the scenes captured by their predecessors, endeavoring to achieve the same angles, perspectives, and lighting as in the early photographs.

From Cyburbian graciela: This is a bit trivial but have any of you ever reflected on the the effect that the style of on-street parking can have on the percieved quality of an urban sidewalk/streetscape? In an urban setting, my opinion has always been on-street parking=good. I never really cared if it was parallel or angled. I always let the site/context/traffic patterns, etc. dictate the form of the onstreet parking.

Is one more institutional than the other? Maybe angled is more informal? What are your thoughts?

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From Cyburbian TexanOkie: Texas state statute mandates that all subdivisions, regardless of plat stage, be before the planning/platting commission within 30 days of it's submittal, and, if according to each city's charter the plat also needs to go before the governing body, 30 days after the planning commission decision to the City Council. This is rather fast, in my opinion, and is generally business-friendly and works with most developers and their teams on addressing issues with their plans.

However, we are looking into possibly creating an official "Expedited Review" process that would cut that time practically in half (barring any idiot proposals or lack of progress as far as addressing issues). The expedited review would be an option on each subdivision application (i.e. check boxes for either expedited or standard reviews) and would have a higher application fee due to the added stresses it places on our staff.

From Cyburbian Tom R: Did you know that a group of frogs is called an army or a colony? Me neither. Here is a link that give more names for groupings of critters than should be allowed. Anyway, what is a group of planners? An obfuscation? A stonewall? Others?

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From Cyburbian centralpark: We are tasked with working in a rural community that has few assets, not even enough to put together an agritourism map with the area cooperative extension folk.

I need some ideas of things that people have seen elsewhere that I might suggest to citizen groups in this community as projects they would support. I'm trolling through 'best practice' sorts of websites to try and find something, anything that is a project that was successful elsewhere and might transfer here.

Driving Detroit (http://media.freep.com/drivingdetroit/stories.html) is a series of articles from the Detroit Free Press that documents a four-month odyssey through all 2,700 miles (4,350 kilometers) of Detroit's over 2,100 streets. The idea of this unusual roadtrip was to get a unique view of Detroit; a short-term, street-level survey of the city's 138 square miles (357 square kilometers), and a snapshot of the city many insist is coming back.

From Cyburbian jread: I'm just curious as to whether or not anyone on here is going to an Ivy League school for their planning degree. What will you do with it when you get out? I know that local government employs most planners, so I can't imagine a Harvard graduate wanting to work for the City of Bugtussle for $40k per year. It doesn't seem cost-effective.

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From Cyburbian kanben: I'm a Master's student in Massachusetts and was just offered a summer internship with the planning department of a small town (pop ~13,000) about and hour from Boston. It seems like a good opportunity for me because it's a small department and even as a summer intern I'd have a lot of responsibility, working on issues ranging from growth management, historic preservation, affordable housing, etc.

The issue I'm struggling with, however, is that I will probably be moving to Chicago after I graduate next year. In obvious ways, Chicago is different than this small New England town. While I will certainly gain practical experience that is marketable in any city I work in, I wonder whether it would be a better idea to try for a position in a larger city. I have applied for an internship in one city that, although certainly not the size of Chicago, is bigger and more socio-economically diverse than the one I've been offered the position in.

From Cyburbian TexanOkie: The City of Austin recently updated its regulations on the placement of billboards that allows them to be placed on some roads that were once classified as "scenic" by the City that have since been built up and lost such designation. This has caused several citizens and surrounding municipalities to be up in arms and threatening boycotts of any companies that advertise on new billboards.

My question is this: What’s the big deal with billboards? So long as they’re spaced properly and maintained, they’re not really an eyesore, or at least they don't have to be. They also provide opportunities for local businesses without access or funds to TV, internet, or print advertising a way to get their name out at what is probably a more convenient time and place, anyway. Regardless, relaxed billboard regulations, which in Central Texas means allowing them at all, surely does not merit cries of the apocalypse, does it?

From Cyburbian strumpeace: Here's the situation. The state has seen fit to build a new interstate exit on the fringe of my town. We already have three interstate exits, all looking equally tacky with typical highway commercial clutter.

The new exit connects the interstate to a scenic highway with a natural ridge on one side and a valley on the other. The area is mostly rural with practically no commercial development.

The planning department envisions preserving the ridge and creating something of a recreation corridor connecting two parks that are on opposite ends of the highway with a context-sensitive (read: curvy and steep) bicycle trail.

From Cyburbian jsk1983: Marktown was (is) a planned industrial community located in the city of East Chicago, Indiana approximately 22 miles from Chicago's loop. Clayton Mark, of the Mark Manufacturing Company was a member of the Chicago Commercial Club which commissioned a study to discover why there was such a high turnover of industrial employees. What the study found was that there was a lack of quality, affordable housing for workers and their families. With this in mind Mark commissioned Howard Van Doren Shaw, a prominent Chicago architect to design a town that would meet the needs of his workers. The result was Marktown which was built in 1917.

Early in the 20th century, staggeringly high turnover in industrial jobs provoked studies and surveys. Lack of quality housing in industrial areas emerged as a primary reason for the costly labor force turnover. Industrialist Clayton Mark commissioned famed Chicago architect Howard Van Doren Shaw to create housing that addressed the needs and desires of his steel workers. Shaw designed Marktown (http://www.marktown.org), a complete village. An intact English Garden City sandwiched between giant steel mills and refineries, the 1917 planned community retains all 218 of the original structures. A unique and unexpected place, Marktown’s European-patterned streets are so narrow that cars park on the sidewalk and people walk in the roadway.