Developer-Planner Interaction in Transportation and Land Use Sustainability, MTI Report 01-21

This study argues that significant unmet demand exists for alternatives to conventional auto-oriented development; and further that planning interventions that restrict densities and land use mixing in developed areas are a major reason that this demand remains unmet. In order to explore these hypotheses, this study carried out two principal investigations. The first is a national survey of developers, randomly selected from the database of the Urban Land Institute in Washington, DC, the premiere national organization of land developers. Overall, the survey reveals considerable interest on the part of the private development community in developing in a fashion that is more compact than regulations currently allow. This interest varied by region, with the greatest interest expressed in the densely settled regions of the mid-Atlantic and the Northeast. Developers in the Southwest and South Central regions (Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Arkansas and Louisiana) expressed considerably less interest in developing in a more dense or mixed-use fashion than permitted by current regulation. Similarly, interest in developing more intensely than current regulations permit varied by setting. Little such interest exists for development in rural areas, but developers\u27 interest in such development in inner suburbs was especially keen

Fits-and-Starts: The Changing Nature of the Material City

How and why does the material city in the late 20th and early 21st century change? This article examines one type of prominent urban change, which is "fits-and-starts" and represents change that is concentrated in space and time and that nonetheless has longer term repercussions with high economic and environmental costs. Through a review of the literature and an illuminating case study in Las Vegas, this article reveals how human perception and decision-making via two interrelated phenomena, future speculation and manufactured obsolescence, drive such change. The case study in Las Vegas is particularly fascinating because as a city of apparent extremes, it not only reveals in clear relief phenomena that are present in the capitalist city but it also offers insights into basic patterns of decision-making that actually shape - or design - the contemporary city. The article concludes with more general insights into the nature of this type of urban change and implications for alternative types of urban practices

City as Flux: Interrogating the Changing Nature of Urban Change

What do we mean by the changing nature of urban change? First of all, in the 20th and 21st centuries, cities have been changing in different and dramatic ways, whether through grassroots mobilizations, through technological leaps, or through profit-driven speculations. Second, our understanding of how cities change has also been evolving, in particularly through empirical work that challenges the broad-brush universalizations of conventional thinking. The authors of the six selected articles take us through an around-the-world tour of cities and regions that range from Mulhouse in France to Dakar in Senegal to Las Vegas in the United States to Bogota in Colombia and beyond. Each author carefully examines the nature of urban change and how planners, developers, and citizens are either dealing with that change or even shaping it. Together, what the articles suggest is that we need a more fine-grained understanding of the city as flux in order to obtain better theoretical insights as well as urban practices that can better manage and ultimately shape urban change to benefit citizens, especially those who are marginalized

Representing the under-represented: labor unions as urbanists

Persistent precarity is a fundamental, yet usually hidden and often overlooked condition of urbanism, particularly for those who represent the human labor that produces and reproduces the capitalist city. The question, then, is how do those who represent this under-represented human labor, unions, engage with and influence the underlying power structure that actually shapes the city? Labor unions simultaneously shape and are shaped by the spatial political economy of the contemporary city. This article examines this phenomenon through analysis of an illuminating case study, the powerful Culinary Union in Las Vegas. Drawing from different primary and secondary sources, this article offers several valuable insights: organized labor is significant in the spatial production of the city, urban precarity can be mitigated by advocating for the public realm, and asserting agency in the power dynamics of the city can be an effective way of influencing its urbanism

Crisis Urbana y Respuesta Institucional en Dos Megaciudades: Lecciones del Manejo de la Devastación Sísmica en la Ciudade de México y Los Ángeles

Apoyado en un marco analítico derivado tanto de la teoría institucional como de la teoría de la planeación urbana, este estudio examina los resultados de dos programas creados para restablecer el orden y la estabilidad después de una situación de crisis urbana. Éstos son: el Programa de Renovación Habitacional Popular en la Ciudad de México, establecido luego del terremoto de 1985, y el Programa de Ghost Town establecido en la ciudad de Los Ángeles, California, después del terremoto de 1994. Ambos han sido encomiados por su accionar rápido, su financiamiento masivo, el mejoramiento de las condiciones preexistentes, la participación comunitaria, y la coordinación institucional. El argumento principal de este estudio es que las instituciones de planeación urbana en ambas ciudades fueron efectivas durante la crisis provocada por los sismos, principalmente porque se apoyaron en rutinas institucionales: un tipo de procedimiento que suele ser denostado o subestimado porque tiene la reputación de ser extremadamente burocrático. Las instituciones de planeación en la Ciudad de México y Los Ángeles respondieron con efectividad porque fueron capaces de adaptar rutinas institucionales, en forma rápida y eficiente, a circunstancias imprevistas y dramáticas. Planteado como un estudio de caso, este análisis se propone clarificar y explicar la dinámica de la planeación urbana en un contexto de crisis de dos maneras: Primero, los estudios de caso demuestran que un análisis institucional explícito y sistemático ayuda a entender mejor qué elementos dan buenos resultados en material de planeación urbana, y por qué. Segundo, el análisis institucional muestra bajo qué condiciones pueden servir las rutinas institucionales como herramientas poderosas y efectivas para resolver situaciones imprevistas sin importar el contexto sociopolítico dominante