Ben Brown

It’s pretty clear that breaking news in American cities is not going to let us duck debates about race, inequality and public policy. About time, right? Still, it doesn’t feel like we’re getting anywhere, what with partisans screaming, “You just don’t get it!” to their opposites across a wasteland of failed... Continue Reading

I should maybe feel at least a little guilty for escaping the cold weather in the North Carolina mountains where I live and heading to Florida over the weekend. But I don’t. The destination was, after all, Panhandle Florida, the vertically challenged part of Florida that folks farther south call “LA,” as in “Lower... Continue Reading

Those of us who’ve been tangling with status quo protectors in housing design and policymaking got a charge out of Justin Shubow’s Forbes blog post earlier this month. Shubow backhanded modernist starchitects for persisting in their personal artistic vision without regard to the human use of real places: “Modernism... Continue Reading

Here’s a quiz for you: What’s the “it” in these two quotes? And who’s talking? It “is a radical, government-led re-engineering of society, one that artificially inverted millennia of accumulated wisdom . .” It “offers conservatism a new venue, one where we can couple our desire for traditional culture... Continue Reading

Now that the recent economic unpleasantness is behind us, we can resume the suburbanization of everywhere. The Economist apparently thinks so, given its recent special section headlined “The World Is Becoming Ever More Suburban, and the Better for It.” (more…) Continue Reading

Want to know where we go wrong solving single-mindedly for parking, affordability, sustainability, accessibility and all the other stuff on urban planning’s high-priority list? Consider the tomato.  More specifically the winter tomato, as designed and manufactured in Florida. In Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial... Continue Reading

Still wondering about why it’s so hard to have a civil conversation about planning for the future in so many places? Or why everyone seems so pissed about everything all the time? Could it have something to do with the telltale bulge in the waistline of American demography? (more…) Continue Reading

By Wednesday morning, we’ll know which political party gained and which lost ground in Congress. As for learning about the direction of federal policy and its short-term impacts in states, regions and local communities: Not so much. But not for long. That’s because time is running out on the baked-in paralysis in... Continue Reading

Kaid Benfield, newly-announced ‘Senior Counsel’ for PlaceMakers. Many of you know -- or know of -- Kaid Benfield, who’s led smart growth and sustainability initiatives at the Natural Resources Defense Council for two decades. Kaid is stepping down from his NRDC post. And we’re delighted to announce that he’ll... Continue Reading

Hello, you in the hazmat suit. Can we talk? Though no one can authoritatively predict, from an epidemiology perspective, what will happen next, Ebola reached new levels of infection in the body politic last week. Republicans and Democrats seem pretty sure they’ve identified likely sources of toxicity. And it should... Continue Reading