Post of the Day

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!

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.

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.

From Cyburbian mccc28: I'm trying to decide whether going to Las Vegas for national conference would be more beneficial in my pursuit for a planning job. I finished my masters a year ago from an accredited program, but have been struggling to find a job. Living in New England, I have learned that just about every entry level position is filled by someone with much more experience, and have recently started applying nationally and internationally. I won't be able to afford flying all over for interviews, so I was wondering if going to the conference would be a good place to meet potential employers. I hope your experiences can help me decide where my money and time is best spent

From Cyburbian MacheteJames: My municipality is looking to apply for some state transportation enhancement funds. I have about a month to six weeks to put a proposal together. The minimum grant award is $200k, with a max award of $2.5 mil. One of the potential projects on the table is to make infrastructure improvements to enhance the ability of cyclists and pedestrians to get around. The pedestrian portion of this is somewhat obvious - add some sidewalks where there should be sidewalks, crosswalks, bump outs, islands, and so forth.

From Cyburbian hilldweller: Getting written work published in traditional media sources and scholarly journals has always been a prerequisite for those aspiring for a career in the ivory tower as a college professor. Likewise, many of the top institutions expect doctoral candidates to demonstrate the ability to produce written work and research that is recognized as a significant contribution to the field.

But written work that is deemed acceptable to the ivory tower does not neccessarily mean it is any better than other writing on nontraditional sources of media. Rather, it means that the academic establishment has signed off on the reputation/prestige of the particular outlet, and that the submission has been sufficiently vetted through a "peer review" or similar process.

From Cyburbian MacheteJames: "It has been decided that...."

"An informational meeting will be held..."

I just had a little epiphany here at work. The writing that I produce and spend all my time reading (planning and government related stuff) is full of the passive voice. This is something that our teachers and professors tried to beat out of us again and again as we went through our schooling, yet it is absolutely rampant in our line of work due to the automatic C.Y.A. benefit it provides.

Do any of you out there see the same rampant level of overuse of this type of writing as I do?

From Cyburbian MacheteJames: So who is currently working on the Census Bureau's local address update? We had to change our choice of option and as a result, I'm just now getting started on the process. I know there are a couple of ways to go about doing this (their proprietary MAF/TIGER GIS viewer, ArcGIS, and another one that I've found called CommunityViewer). The biggest hassle looks like it will be formating our address list to meet the Census Bureau's standards. Has anyone managed to actually finish the LUCA update yet?

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