r/urbanplanning

I recently traveled from Marseille, France to Genova, Italy by car.

For all of the amazing design features and history of European towns and villages (and I think they are by and large superior to American ), basically none of them have serious waterfront infrastructure.

When I'm talking about waterfront structures I'm not just referring to fancy mixed used districts and walkways (Vancouver has great examples, but so does Barcelona).

What I mean is the way in which your average little town or village gives you
- actual access to the sea
- proper walkways, railings, toilets, etc.
- actual beaches, nature reserves, harbors

Especially in Italy I noticed that most of the towns and cities do not really interface with the Mediterranean Sea at all. In 90% of cases the town just sort of stops. Many of them will have railway infrastructure or decrepit industrial Estates right next to the shoreline. This is completely strange to me, since European towns usually are renowned for good urbanism.

I have also noticed this is true for mostly Mediterranean cities in Europe. Which makes even less sense to me, since you cannot really use the sea as much in the west of France or north of Spain, the Basque country etc. For some reason those regions have neat little harbors, walkways, beaches.

If you compare this to the United States, there are obviously crimes against urban design when it comes to waterfronts. Basically the entire Lake Michigan Shoreline is just one big industrial wasteland.

But if you look at any random coastal town that has some history, say along the tidewater region, Carolinas, Virginia, Georgia... even the smallest of towns will have some sort of amenity, public bathrooms, anything that makes the shoreline actually usable.

I'm really interested in everybody's opinion on this.

Was recently at a community tabling event standing alongside a representative from our speed camera contractor to do community outreach, which our county requires we do as a part of our speed camera installation process. Frankly, this was not one of my projects, but I was asked to be there anyways since I did some work for it here and there, so I obliged.

I have a little bit of experience handed down to me by my bosses around how to pitch certain solutions such as pedestrianization and traffic calming projects to the general public: emphasize "freedom", focus on empowerment, and overall stuff that plays into American individualism. I also try not to get too in the weeds about the minutiae of the work unless I'm prompted to (quantitative justification, traffic studies, etc).

However, I noticed that the representative (who I later learned had a sales background) was selling the speed cameras as though they were a product to be bought rather than something that was already guaranteed to be installed. They got into the details of the speed cameras, their legality, and even how they worked. At first I thought this would backfire in their face, since I thought they were throwing too much at the public, but between when I pitched the cameras and they did, the majority of those we talked to took the project well.

My question to the community is not which one of us pitched the product better, but how we all go about doing it in the first place. I would like to hear the projects you all had to present to the public, the positions you took regarding them (explain, defend, justify), and how you fared in terms of public reaction. I'm curious to see what your takes on this are!

I've been developing a free community resource platform called Gather, and I'd love to get honest feedback before continuing to expand it.
Gather is designed to make it easier for people to find help when they need it most. Using your current location, it displays nearby food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters, emergency housing, healthcare and urgent care, addiction recovery services, crisis support, clothing assistance, and other nonprofit or public assistance organizations in one place.

But Gather is intended to be much more than a resource directory. One of its core features is helping reduce food waste while getting more food to people who need it. Grocery stores can subscribe to the platform and quickly post surplus food that would otherwise be discarded. Nearby food pantries, shelters, soup kitchens, and other aid organizations receive alerts so they can claim and coordinate pickup of available donations before they go to waste. All Subscription proceeds are intended to benefit Partnership to End Addiction.

Gather also includes a community support system that allows aid organizations to create public wish lists of the supplies they need most—everything from hygiene products and diapers to blankets, cleaning supplies, and other essentials. Individuals experiencing hardship can submit requests for needed items through participating organizations. When a donor purchases those items, they are shipped directly to a participating aid organization for local pickup, providing a simple and organized way to connect donors with people in need.
For people who simply want to help their community, Gather also provides an easy way to purchase essential supplies for individuals experiencing homelessness or financial hardship through participating organizations, allowing donors to contribute tangible items where they're needed most.

My goal is to build a platform that not only helps people locate assistance, but also strengthens connections between donors, nonprofits, grocery stores, volunteers, and the communities they serve.
The project is still actively being developed, and I'd really appreciate constructive feedback.

If you work with a nonprofit, grocery store, healthcare organization, or community program, would something like this be useful?

Whether you're a developer, someone who works in the nonprofit sector, or simply someone who wants to help others, I'd genuinely appreciate your perspective.

You can check it out here:
https://live-gather.org

Thanks for taking the time to look it over. Every piece of feedback helps move the project closer to becoming a genuinely useful tool for communities.

Today, I found out that Toyota is based out of the Nagoya area and automotive is a big industry there. Nagoya is known for being much more car dependent than the other Japanese cities (Tokyo, Osaka, Fuluokah, etc). Detroit often blames its car centricness on the car industry as well. So people theorize that big auto lobbies these cities to stay car centric. Thoughts?

I'm finishing up some projects at the moment and I've noticed a trend among all major Cities in my dataset: From Auckland, to Toronto, to New York, to Melbourne and everywhere else I looked within Cities that have either acted upon establishing a Metropolitan Government, or considered establishing one, I haven't been able to notice any significant savings on the part of any Cities' liabilities.

Surely it's warranted for me to crank out an equation, but, the only aspects of "production" or "output" is tied up with either "GDP" or, "PPP", but, with the realization that socially harmful economic transactions (basically: rent increasing supports "GDP growth", laying off indie artists by writing lame slop movie scripts using ChatGPT does too) needs to be excluded from any calculations to get an accurate picture of well-being.

So this begs the question: When will the field decouple from "orthodox" economics and ditch GDP-GDP/C as a measure of wellbeing for Cities?

Hello, i am looking for books on european urban planning. Most books i find i usually american which is not relevant for me.

If someone can recommed me some books, preferable some cheaper ones i would appreciate it.

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I’m on a local planning and zoning committee. We have 3 gas stations being proposed.

Community next to ours has 2. And another has 2.

It just seems odd to me the boom in requests. And there is not a lack of existing gas stations. In fact some of these are across the street from established gas stations.

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I know this might be a bit of an easy question but I want different perspectives and solutions and such.

You obviously need some level of density to support services and transit and businesses and make the place not car dependant. At the same time, me and i'm sure many other people would like to live in single family housing with room for a nice little garden and such. You can have areas with large apartment buildings and a few single family houses, but then those single family houses get ludicrously expensive. Is there any way to build walkable neighborhoods with many single family houses?

Submission statement: New York City’s Rent Guidelines Board approved a rent freeze for rent-stabilized apartments, aligning with a first-generation rent-control model. While this provides short-term relief for tenants, it poses long-term risks to the city’s housing market. The freeze could lead to deteriorating building conditions, reduced investment in housing quality, and a two-tier housing system that disadvantages newcomers and those needing to relocate.

I do not believe one can hold these two arguments simultaneously, there appears to be a logical contradiction.

If induced demand ultimately means increasing road capacity has no effect on improving the price of traffic, then how can increasing housing capacity have a downward effect on its price? If more housing supply lowers prices, then it would logically induce more demand/consumption of housing, which if we run with the argument usually made for roads, should return it back to previous prices.

Either increasing housing supply relative to demand has no ultimate effect on house prices, or increasing road supply relative to demand has a downward effect on the price of congestion.

Submission statement: Vancouver, facing a severe housing crisis, is witnessing a unique development on Squamish land. Freed from city regulations, the Squamish are building Senakw, a dense residential neighborhood with 6,000 homes, challenging Vancouver’s restrictive housing policies. This project, led by Squamish leader Khelsilem, aims to provide much-needed housing while promoting urban density and sustainability.

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Hi there 👋🏻

I'm posting this to see if anyone has any information, insights or tidbits of any knowledge or points or references anyone might have on Urban Heat Islands, specifically related to London but also more generally, and how Urban Greening can be used to counteract it (case studies or references from all round the world welcome).

Just dropping this here as I'm doing research on the subject.

Thanks in advance :)