Architecture & Urban Planning

Ruth Steiner, a professor of urban and regional planning at UF, moved here from the San Francisco Bay area about 20 years ago. Compared to back then, she said, traffic counts on major roads like 13th Street are down while public transit ridership in Gainesville has grown considerably. Steiner, who lives halfway between Santa Fe College and UF and takes the bus occasionally, such as when her car is in the shop, spoke positively of how RTS service has expanded and improved over the years and pointed out that Gainesville's employment centers are pretty centrally located too.

Auburn, Calif. July 17, 2015 - Today marks the close of the comment period for the initial environmental review of massive development proposed for Tahoe's Squaw Valley, and letters are pouring in from local residents, neighboring jurisdictions, government agencies, and regional conservation groups. Sierra Watch delivered its detailed 130-page letter to Placer County this morning.

City planners held a “pop-up” event Saturday [June 13, 2015] on Adeline Street to listen to concerns of community bikers and pedestrians about the Adeline Corridor Plan.

Although the price is steep, spending $1 million to buy property across from the Manset Pier and convert it into a parking lot will benefit the town in the long run, Town Manager Don Lagrange told selectmen Tuesday. Officials have been discussing the purchase of the Knote property on the Shore Road. On Tuesday, selectmen voted 5-0 to move toward that goal by authorizing a summary appraisal of the property. ...

“They’re kind of pushing their own limits and starting to think out of the box in terms of where we can put parks and what parks look like,” says Tori Kjer, Los Angeles program director for the Trust for Public Land, which has partnered on several parks. “If you look at South L.A. it’s so extremely dense and there’s really not any big parcels waiting to become parks, so we have to get creative about thinking about the properties we can go after.”

Nathan McClintock, a professor at the school of urban studies at Portland State University, sees a link between the rise of urban farming and a diminishing social safety net. “With the stripping away of the welfare state, there’s a growing dependence on food banks and volunteerism; people can rely less on government assistance,” he said. “People are also moving back to cities and they want a back-to-the-land experience.”

It is easy to overlook the pipes and boxes carrying water under our roads, but these parts of our transportation infrastructure can have huge impacts on freshwater health and road safety. 2003 Fellow Jessica Levine is working in the northeastern United States to replace and upgrade road crossings to benefit aquatic species and habitat along with other community goals.