Planning Pool

A small but important part of the ‘Greenest City Action Plan’, The City of Vancouver hopes to tackle the resource efficiency of existing buildings through a proposed amendment to our building by-law (VBBL) that would require green improvements along with the renovation of one and two family homes. Arguably, it might seem like this will have a small impact on the massive GHG goals taken on by the Province and City, however it is an essential step in any Green Building plan. Read more…

A few of this week’s stories from the NewsPool are highlighted below, featuring some different takes on accommodating growth from around the world, as well as a reflection at the closing of the annual American Planning Association (APA) conference. Click on the links for some end-of-week reading!

Earth Day is coming up next week (April 22). This unofficial Earth Day flag is in the public domain.

Perhaps the most surprising piece of planning-related news this week was the US military acknowledgement (finally!) that oil shortages may be on the near horizon. This is sure to lend a greater sense of urgency to planning for a post-peak world.

US military warns oil output may dip causing massive shortages by 2015
Surplus oil production capacity could disappear within a … Continue Reading

CEOs for Cities just released a study showing that homes located close to shops, schools, churches, offices, libraries, parks, and restaurants are worth more than similar homes in less-walkable neighborhoods.

The report, “Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities” by Joseph Cortright, analyzed data from 94,000 real estate transactions in 15 major markets. Cortright found that in 13 of the 15 markets, higher levels of walkability, as measured by Walk Score, correlated to higher home values.

…lift me up and turn me round. So sang David Byrne in the Talking Heads. Here’s a fantastic little film created by Jason Owen for a housing policy class at SCARP on “the meaning of home”.

Home…is where I want to be from Planning Pool on Vimeo.

Shot using a fancy Digital SLR rig and carefully put together in editing, this stop-motion film fits so well with Naive Melody that one could easily be forgiven for thinking that the Talking Heads had Vancouver’s West End in mind when writing this little ditty.

Kudos to Jason for doing such a killer job on this. Watching it makes me warm, fuzzy and well…homey!

While groundbreaking new works are constantly being added to the body of planning literature, older texts still have plenty to teach. “The classics” have inspired and informed more recent work, and even their outdated aspects can provide a valuable glimpse into the zeitgeist of past eras.

Following its publication in 1984, “Redesigning the American Dream: The Future of Housing, Work and Family Life” by Dolores Hayden received awards in planning, design and feminist scholarship. It is a measure of its influence that Arlie Russell Hochschild cited it several times in “The Second Shift,” her ground-breaking 1990 book about the gender dynamics within dual-career American families.

From the point of view of a present-day reader, the greatest achievement of “Redesigning the American Dream” lies in illustrating … Continue Reading