In my undergraduate years (I talk about them like I graduated before 2008), I presented at the University-Wide Undergraduate Research Conference at the University of New Hampshire. This event provided the opportunity for students to present their research, usually related to the iPhone use or recycling habits of university students, to the University community and [...]

A few months ago, I wrote about Jane's Walks, a yearly weekend of walking tours in cities all over the world. Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in one of these walks, held especially for the Creative Places + Spaces conference. It took place in one of the most curious neighbourhoods in Toronto - [...]

The New York Times ran an article this week highlighting the "controversy" over the investments of eco-champion Al Gore.  Apparently, some perceive a conflict of interest between the Nobel Laureate’s environmental fervor and his wide-ranging financial stakes in green industry.  Conservative lawmakers have questioned Gore’s true intentions, citing his ties to Kleiner Perkins Caufield and [...]

Over the course of a few decades, a neighbourhood’s demand for school infrastructure can change dramatically. Changes in population size or composition fuel the need for new schools or erode the viability of existing ones. The effects of these demographic changes are highly localized, since the residential catchment area of an urban elementary school is [...]

Millions of dollars are collaboratively allocated each year according to the priorities of residents in Toronto's public housing units. This participatory budgeting process was invented 20 years ago in Porto Alegre, Brazil, and is now transforming budgeting processes in cities around the world. The Canadian Conference on Dialogue and Deliberation presented a panel on Toronto Community [...]

Last night I went to see “Where the Wild Things Are” at the Scotiabank Theatre on Burrard Street in Downtown Vancouver.  During a pause between scenes, you could hear the tittering of a baby somewhere in the back of the theatre.  The kid had been making noise the entire movie but it didn’t even cross [...]

What is it about current governance and decision-making systems that make them so resistant to change and act as barriers to implementing sustainability? A packed room of city counselors, sustainability consultants and public participation advocates explored this question with workshop leader Chris Lindberg at a Gaining Ground workshop on Wednesday. Participants identified four reasons that our government [...]

Just a quick heads up - Planning Pool is going to be at Fresh Media on Saturday! Fresh Media is a celebration of innovation and independent media, and a re-imagining of media and journalism in Canada. The collaborative forum and unconference happening Oct 24th from 12:00 - 6:30pm at the spanking new W2 space at 112 [...]

Nicole Boyer facilitated a panel of speakers yesterday at Gaining Ground. Bill Rees, Vanessa Timmer, and Vincent Tan spoke about why we need to rethink cities and what cities of the future could look like. To set up the context of why we need to rethink cities, Bill Rees showed how cities tax our ecosystems. Rees blamed [...]

Nola-Kate Seymoar, social psychologist and President and CEO of Sustainable Cities, spoke today about the psychology of change. She began her talk by addressing three elements that contribute to human behavioral change: structure, process and attitude. She argues that focusing on the structure part of this model (which includes factors such as built form, financial instruments, policies, [...]

Bill Reed, Principle of the Integrative Design Collaborative, began his lecture by talking about the problematic structure of the English language and how this has influenced the way english-speaking cultures conceptualize nature and approach development. Specifically, the use of object verbs and subject verbs causes us to describe and ultimately understand elements of the world [...]

Paul Hawken is a visionary environmentalist, entrepreneur, journalist, and author of well known books such as Blessed Unrest, and co-author of Natural Capitalism. (His opening remarks for the Gaining Ground Resilient Cities Conference were blogged on Planning Pool earlier today.) He is also a twin, as we learned during the session. In a salon session with conference participants, [...]

Who will be the most sustainable city in the world? Vancouver, British Columbia, unveiled its Greenest City Initiative today, which sets 10 ambitious targets for resource use reduction, to achieve by 2010. Portland, Oregon, is a close competitor for this “greenest” city title, having already won the number one spot in US city rankings by [...]

The first morning of the Gaining Ground, Resilient Cities conference concluded with a presentation by Paul Hawken, renowned author of Natural Capitalism, the Ecology of Commerce, and Blessed Unrest. His remarks followed up on Mayor Gregor Robertson’s introduction of Vancouver’s Greenest City Initiative, so he opened by teasing Vancouver about our good-looking and charismatic mayor, [...]

October 19, 2009.  In a room full of Vancouver’s planning and transportation elite, Gordon Price (director of SFU’s City Program) introduced an event from SFU’s public lecture series, evoking New York City’s gritty and dangerous history, comparing it to a “fallen empire.”  He feels that the success in recent years give it reason to be [...]

During the coming week, Planning Pool will be liveblogging the Gaining Ground Summit from Vancouver, BC. This means you can expect a flurry of posts detailing many events headed by leading thinkers on urban resiliency. Click here for the event program — if there’s a specific event you want to hear about, let us know and we’ll see [...]

Last month, we updated you about Vancouver’s Open City Initiative and the Beta Open Data Catalogue that had just come online. In a similar fashion, New York City is opening up its public databases, ranging from traffic data to restaurant health inspections and property sales. The project, called NYC BigApps, is a competition that is giving [...]

The sights and smells of street food can be one of the great experiential pleasures of a city, and every city is different. Carts sell roasted chestnuts on London’s street corners in the wintertime, while New York’s streets bristle with hot dog carts. Portland, Oregon, shown above, is known for its array of food carts. They seem [...]

Time Magazine this month is focusing on Detroit – why the city is in decline, what it is like to live there now, and what can be done to make life better for residents who are still there. I’m not going to lie. I find Detroit’s decline truly fascinating. Home of the mythical $1,000 house (Wait! [...]

In case you were wondering about some ways to use Planning Pool beyond just reading our posts, watch this video! In it, you’ll find out how to comment, how to use SplashUp Map, and how to upload video. We just showed this video at the CIP Conference in Niagara Falls to great response, and now [...]