The Bike Lane: Separate and Unequal – A Painted Path to Second-Class Citizenship

The Illusion of Progress

Oh, bike lanes! Hark, a victory for urban cyclists! Behold, the painted path to freedom! For decades, we poor, vulnerable cyclists were forced to bravely mingle with the roaring metal beasts of automobiledom, forced to "share the road" (as if we had a choice!). But then, a glorious dawn! Bike lanes arrived in our fair cities, lauded as a monumental leap forward, a dedicated space just for us! Finally, we had our own special little stripe of asphalt! Except… if you’ve actually dared to pedal down one of these much-celebrated “bike lanes,” the rosy picture starts to… well, deflate faster than a cheap tire on a pothole. Because the uncomfortable truth is, these much-hailed bike lanes are often less a pathway to cycling paradise and more a painted path to second-class citizenship, a separate and unequal space that highlights just how deeply entrenched car-centric thinking remains in our urban planning. Let’s peel back the glossy veneer of bike lane boosterism and examine the reality: are bike lanes really helping cyclists, or are they just a feel-good gesture that distracts from the fundamental changes truly needed to make our streets safe and equitable for everyone?

Won't Someone Think of the Children? Rethinking the City as the Ideal Place to Raise a Family

Challenging Conventional Wisdom

"Think of the children!" It’s a phrase that has echoed through debates about urban development, often wielded to justify the sprawling growth of suburbs and the prioritization of car-centric living. Conventional wisdom suggests that if you want to raise children "right," you move to the exurbs. Big yards, quiet streets, good schools—it's painted as the idyllic childhood environment. But is this conventional wisdom really...wise? Do exurbs truly offer the best environment for kids to grow and thrive? I've started to question this assumption. When you unpack the supposed benefits of exurbia and contrast them with city life, an entirely different picture emerges. In fact, cities, even mid-sized ones in America, provide a richer, more stimulating, and ultimately more beneficial environment for raising children than their distant exurban counterparts. Let’s explore why by looking at four key areas: nature, museums and education, culture, and transportation. Prepare to have your suburban assumptions challenged.

Planned Anarchy: Can Urban Planning Foster a Voluntary Society?

Beyond Coercion, Toward Voluntary Action

"Planned Anarchy." The term itself is deliberately provocative, a seeming paradox. Anarchy, in the common understanding, conjures images of chaos and disorder. Yet, in its original 19th-century political philosophy, anarchism envisioned something quite different: a voluntary society. A society where individuals are so empowered and self-reliant that they cooperate voluntarily to achieve shared goals, without the need for coercion or hierarchical structures.

Now, fast forward to urban planning, a field often associated with top-down regulation and government-led initiatives. Can these two seemingly disparate concepts—“planned” and “anarchy”—actually be reconciled? Can urban planning, paradoxically, become a tool for fostering a voluntary society? Let’s explore this intriguing possibility, delving into practical steps planners can take to encourage citizen-led cooperation, empower communities, and cultivate a sense of shared ownership in shaping the urban environment.

Beyond Money: A Systems View of Economics for Urban Planners (and Everyone Else)

Economics as Resource Transformation, Not Just Money

Economics. The mere mention often brings to mind images of stock tickers, interest rates, and a whirlwind of figures revolving around dollars and cents. But what if we redefined economics not as being solely about money, but rather about the transformation of resources? At its core, economics is about how societies convert resources—natural, human, intellectual—into wealth. Wealth, in its broadest sense, extends beyond financial accumulation. It encompasses the value derived from economic activity and the transformation process itself, which meets societal needs and creates value from available resources.

Adopting a systems dynamics approach reveals the economy as a web of interconnected chains, where the end products of one activity become the starting resources for another. Ideally, these chains are circular, efficient, and sustainable, though every economic transformation requires resources and results in some waste. The essence of this approach is that economic activity, by creating societal wealth, enhances conditions over time. Let’s explore how this systems-based perspective on economics can inform urban planning and decision-making.

The Planner's Oath: Toward a Moral Compass for Urban Development

Beyond Technical Expertise, Toward Ethical Purpose

Urban planning is often presented as a technical discipline, a matter of zoning codes, infrastructure investments, and data-driven decision-making. While technical expertise and multidisciplinary knowledge are undeniably crucial, at its heart, urban planning is a deeply moral and ethical endeavor. We are shaping the environments in which people live, work, and interact, making decisions that have profound and lasting impacts on their well-being, their opportunities, and their very lives. This inherent ethical weight demands a clear moral compass, a set of guiding principles to anchor our decisions and ensure that our actions serve the greater good. The idea of a “Hippocratic Oath” for planners is a good starting point, but let’s push further. Let’s postulate a more comprehensive Planner’s Oath, a set of foundational principles upon which we can build a truly ethical practice of urban planning. As a starting point, let’s consider a few core principles that I believe should be at the heart of any such oath.

Town, City, Metro, Megalopolis: Lost in the Urban Lexicon (and Why It Matters)

A Personal Quest for Urban Definition

Do you live in a town or a city? A metropolis or a megalopolis? Are you downtown, in the urban core, a suburb, or perhaps an exurb? First ring or periphery? Is that your neighborhood or your district? And just how big is your city anyway? Mid-sized, mega-city, or something in between? Hamlet, village, mill town, farming community – the list of ways we categorize and describe urban areas seems endless, almost intentionally designed to create maximum confusion. It’s enough to make you feel utterly lost in the urban lexicon. Because when we try to talk about cities – about urban planning, urban problems, urban solutions – we often stumble right out of the gate, tripped up by the very words we use. Are we even talking about the same thing when we say “city”? Do your definitions match mine? And does any of this even matter? Well, yes, it does. Because this terminological messiness hinders clear communication, muddies policy discussions, and makes it harder to have any meaningful conversation about the urban world we inhabit. While we might not be able to entirely clear up this urban vocabulary soup, let’s at least take a nod to the difficulty, acknowledge the confusion, and try to offer a few working definitions to improve, even just a little, our shared understanding.

Reclaiming the Plate: Urban Planning for a Healthy Food Future Beyond the Supermarket

The Supermarket Straitjacket

In the United States, for most urban dwellers, “food shopping” is synonymous with “supermarket.” These behemoth retailers, with their vast aisles and global supply chains, have come to utterly dominate our food distribution system. From farm to fork, supermarkets act as the gatekeepers, the single buyer-sellers, wielding immense power. And the consequences are stark. Supermarkets, driven by profit maximization, are able to dictate prices both to the farmers who grow our food (often squeezing their margins to the breaking point) and to the consumers who ultimately buy it (often paying inflated prices for food that has traveled thousands of miles). A huge cut of the profits – profits that should be going back to the farmers and accessible prices that should be available to consumers – is instead siphoned off by these massive corporate intermediaries. We’ve become trapped in a supermarket straitjacket, a food system that is increasingly unsustainable, inequitable, and disconnected from both the land and the people who produce our sustenance. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Urban planners have a crucial role to play in reclaiming the plate, in designing and fostering a healthy food future that moves beyond the supermarket and towards a more localized, resilient, and just food distribution system. What would such a system look like? How far would our food travel? How would it be collected and distributed? Who would own and operate the markets themselves? Let’s start to sketch a blueprint for a healthier food future.

Labor as Landscape: Exploring the Urban Planning Implications of Wages, Work, and Unions

Labor at the Heart of Urban Life

Urban planning is all about people—the vibrant communities they create, the economies they sustain, and the lives they lead. At the very core of this urban tapestry lies a simple truth: labor is the lifeblood of any city. The jobs we hold, the wages we earn, and the power we wield as workers aren't just economic metrics; they are the essence of urban planning. As we navigate the city’s arteries, the streets and neighborhoods where people live and work, we must recognize that labor issues are as crucial as infrastructure projects or zoning laws. By focusing on improving wages, addressing unemployment, and empowering workers through unions, urban planners can enhance the quality of life, bolster the economy, and foster equity. This blog post delves into how minimum wage, employment, and unionization are deeply interwoven with urban planning, highlighting their potential to shape cities that work for everyone.

Built to Last (Or Not): Why American Cities Are Losing the Longevity Game

Introduction: Setting the Scene - The Hanoi vs. Anywhere, USA Contrast

Having lived in Hanoi, Vietnam for a decade, I’ve come to appreciate something that’s often shockingly absent in the American urban landscape: longevity. Hanoi is a city that breathes history, a city that visibly carries the weight of a thousand years on its shoulders. Walk down its streets, and you are surrounded by buildings – homes, shops, public structures – built of solid concrete, brick, and stone, structures that feel like they’ve been there for centuries, and in many cases, have. Buildings erected today in Hanoi will likely still be standing, solid and functional, a century from now. Now contrast that with… well, almost any American city. The typical American home, built with light-wood frame construction, might struggle to last two decades without needing major renovations, starting with a roof replacement. Many commercial buildings, thrown up with concrete block and corrugated steel, feel almost… temporary, designed for a quick buck and a short lifespan. Why this stark difference? Why are American construction methods so seemingly short-sighted? Are we content to build cities that are essentially… disposable? What are the long-term consequences for the longevity of our cities, for our connection to our urban past, and for the very way we think about the places we inhabit? Let’s delve into the perplexing question of why American cities are losing the longevity game.

Rehoming Urban Planning: Beyond Architecture School, Towards a More Philosophical Foundation

The "Outdoor Architecture" Assumption

Walk across any university campus with an urban planning program, and chances are, you’ll find its departmental home nestled within the school of architecture. Or perhaps cheek-by-jowl with civil engineering. It’s a default assumption, an institutional habit passed down through generations of academics. But is it the right home? Does this conventional placement truly reflect the essence of urban planning in the 21st century? I’d argue, emphatically, no. This placement stems from a narrow, outdated view of urban planning – a view that reduces it to “outdoor architecture,” concerned primarily with the visual and physical form of the city, rather than its deeper social, economic, and environmental dynamics. If we are to acknowledge urban planning as fundamentally about people, quality of life, and navigating complex systems, then we need to re-evaluate where urban planning education truly belongs within the university ecosystem. It’s time to move beyond architecture school and towards a more robust, interdisciplinary, and yes, more philosophical foundation for the discipline.

Ode to Urban Offal: Why the 'Unsightly' Parts Are the Soul of the City

Cities are Not Department Store Windows

Cities aren’t department store windows designed to seduce you with their polished surfaces and airbrushed perfection. They’re living, breathing organisms pulsating with life, creativity, and yes, even a little bit of chaos. Beneath the gleaming facades of skyscrapers and the verdant allure of city parks lies the gritty underbelly of urban infrastructure—our beloved Urban Offal. This term might evoke images of unkempt industrial wastelands or cacophonous railways, but look closer, and you'll find the essential gears and cogs that keep the urban machine humming. Cities require these robust, unglamorous elements to function efficiently, yet time and again, worthwhile projects get axed simply because they don't match the wallpaper. It's high time we challenge the aesthetic puritans and recognize the necessity and inherent value of Urban Offal.

Whose Sidewalk Is It Anyway? Navigating the Uneasy Truce of Public Space

The Promise and Peril of "Public" Space

Public space. The term itself conjures images of democratic ideals, shared resources, and urban life played out on the communal stage of sidewalks, plazas, and parks. These spaces are designed to be for everyone, serving as the bustling arteries of city life where we gather, interact, and experience the world together. Yet, anyone who has spent time in a city understands that the reality is far from idyllic. The concept of "shared" space is inherently fraught with potential conflict. Diverse groups have varying needs, desires, and ideas about how these spaces should be used and who they should serve. Whose sidewalk is it anyway? Is it for pedestrians to stroll unhindered? For businesses to expand their reach? For street performers to entertain or activists to protest? And what happens when these uses collide? When the charm of curbside dining impedes pedestrian flow? When youthful exuberance is considered a nuisance, yet amplified music is celebrated? Let’s delve into the complex reality of public space and explore the uneasy truce we continuously negotiate in our shared urban environments.

The Homeownership Hustle: Is 100% Really the Goal? (And Who Actually Benefits?)

The Unquestioned Virtue of Homeownership

Homeownership. It’s practically a secular religion in America. The cornerstone of the “American Dream,” the symbol of stability, prosperity, and personal achievement. Politicians of all stripes champion policies to “promote homeownership.” Financial advisors relentlessly preach its virtues. It’s just… understood that homeownership is a good thing, a societal goal to be pursued at all costs. But hold on a minute. Let’s actually question this unquestioned virtue. Is it really in the best interest of society to push everyone into homeownership? What exactly is the societal goal here? Is it truly achievable to get to 100% homeownership? Is that even something everyone wants? And if we somehow achieved this mythical 100% homeownership future, what would it actually look like? Ranch houses and split levels passed down through generations, monuments to intergenerational wealth? Or a nation perpetually mortgaged to the hilt, a never-ending revenue stream for the finance industry? Let’s dare to ask the uncomfortable questions about the homeownership hustle. Is 100% really the goal? And, perhaps more importantly, who actually benefits from this relentless push?

Beyond Buildings: Why Urban Planners Must Care About Wages, Unions, and the Workforce

Cities are People, and People Need to Work and Thrive

Let’s get back to basics. What is a city, really? Is it just bricks and mortar, steel and asphalt? Or is it something more… human? I’d argue that cities are fundamentally collections of people, dynamic human ecosystems, not just static collections of buildings. And if that’s true, then the workforce – the millions of individuals who live and labor in our urban centers – becomes the very heart and soul of the city. They are the vast majority of the urban population, the lifeblood that keeps the city functioning, evolving, and, hopefully, thriving. And if urban planning is truly about improving quality of life – as we so often claim it is – then how can we not be deeply concerned with the health, wealth, and education of these urban residents, these workers, these people who are the city? For the working class, wealth is primarily built through wages. So, it follows, that urban wages should be a major concern for any urban planner who’s serious about improving quality of urban life. But is that really within the purview of urban planning? Let’s explore why it absolutely should be.

Exurban Exodus: From 'Bleeding the City' to 'New Suburbanism' - Reclaiming Urban Offal in the Sprawl

Imagine a 19th-century doctor, convinced that the city was fundamentally unwell, riddled with disease and decay. His cure? Bleeding. Drain the city of its lifeblood, its teeming masses, its bustling workers, its very vitality. Send them to the… suburbs. Gruesome analogy? Perhaps. But think about the 20th-century exodus to the suburbs. Driven by good intentions, perhaps – a desire for fresh air, green space, and a perceived escape from the grit and grime of the industrial city. But in retrospect, wasn't it a kind of urban bloodletting? A draining of the city's core, a scattering of its vital components to the periphery, in the misguided belief that this would somehow “cure” its ills? Instead, we got… sprawl. Vast, car-dependent landscapes, ecologically damaging, socially isolating, and economically unsustainable in the long run. And while “New Urbanism” has emerged as a powerful force for revitalizing urban centers, reclaiming walkability, and promoting urban density, a vast percentage of the population still lives in the suburbs, or, more accurately, the exurbs. And it's these areas, these sprawling exurban landscapes, that are perhaps in the most urgent need of a cure. We need a New Suburbanism – not as an addition to New Urbanism, but as a critical evolution, a reimagining of the exurban model, one that moves beyond the unsustainable sprawl of the 20th century and towards something ecologically, socially, and economically viable for the 21st.