The urban academy

A new approach to the built environment requires comprehensive education on the part of regulators and land-use professionals, so that plans don’t just sit on the shelf. Like many aspects of Plan El Paso, the city has gone the extra mile in this area.

The Prince's Foundation for Building Community will team up with Simon Fraser University to influence local development.

The Atlantic Cities’ investigation of whether light-rail lines reduce road congestion leads us in the wrong direction.

Why does a man of harsh, totalitarian instincts continue to be venerated? 

"L.A. wasn’t built around the car," says a writer exploring the life's work of the UCLA 'parking guru.' "It was built around the parking lot."

A new book, and the New York Times architecture critic, ponder how to make better use of some of the 500 million parking spaces in America. 

A study of New Haven, Connecticut, finds that "the more parking there is in a city, the fewer people are there."

A proposed megamall and Ferris wheel at the mouth of the Don River are lambasted in a protest from 147 leading aademics, urban designers, and architects.

Ryerson University in Toronto presents a world premiere of "Urbanized," a documentary about the design and development of modern cities.

A review by Doris Goldstein of Beyond Privatopia: Rethinking Residential Private Government. A book by Evan McKenzie. Urban Institute Press, 2011, 164 pp., $26.50 paperback.

In their first substantive dialog, landscape urbanist Charles Waldheim and new urbanist Andres Duany reveal that the issue is less about sprawl than what lies beyond everybody’s front door: The street.

Stephen Fuller of George Mason University frequently advocates positions favored by Greater Washington real estate interests — sometimes making smart growth proponents unhappy.