247 episodes

From affordable housing to disaster recovery, from climate resilience to autonomous vehicles, APA's podcast delves into a wide array of urban planning topics with deep curiosity, expert analysis, and affecting, true-life stories.

American Planning Association American Planning Association

    • Education
    • 4.5 • 53 Ratings

From affordable housing to disaster recovery, from climate resilience to autonomous vehicles, APA's podcast delves into a wide array of urban planning topics with deep curiosity, expert analysis, and affecting, true-life stories.

    Megan Oliver on How to Plan for Happiness in Cities

    Megan Oliver on How to Plan for Happiness in Cities

    Planners can design places for many purposes: to promote commerce, to protect us from natural disasters, to uplift historical significance. As mental health and social relationships become increasingly significant, new questions rise to the top: What about planning for the way people feel? How can planners better understand how environments impact well-being and then learn to shape more joyful, healing spaces? In this episode of People Behind the Plans, Megan Oliver, AICP, WELL AP, founder of Hello Happy Design, discusses how the intersection of neuroscience and planning — called neurourbanism — can provide planners with the necessary tools to design places for social and emotional health. Oliver also speaks to the rising awareness of neurodiversity and how we can change our assumptions about how community members engage with the people and places around them. This episode was sponsored by Nexus at University of Michigan Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/megan-oliver-on-how-to-plan-for-happiness-in-cities/

    • 25 min
    Anaid Yerena and Rashad Williams on Building an Equitable Future of Planning

    Anaid Yerena and Rashad Williams on Building an Equitable Future of Planning

    The history of planning includes racist policies and practices that have resulted in entrenched inequity and enduring systemic barriers. Understanding the complexities and impacts of those barriers is necessary to dismantling ingrained inequalities and achieving transformative change. A recent edition of the Journal of the American Planning Association (JAPA) called “Antiracist Futures: Disrupting Racist Planning Practices in Workplaces, Institutions, and Communities” centers racial justice in the planning field, documenting the current state of the profession and planning education, and offering tangible strategies for implementing anti-racist practices that are adaptable and responsive. In this episode of People Behind the Plans, JAPA contributors Rashad Williams, Assistant Professor of Race and Social Justice in Public Policy at the University of Pittsburgh, and Anaid Yerena, Associate Professor of Urban Studies at the University of Washington, Tacoma, speak about anti-racist community planning concepts that lay the foundation for planners to reckon with history, disrupt the status quo and find new ways to pursue equity in every community. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/anaid-yerena-and-rashad-williams-on-building-an-equitable-future-of-planning/

    • 19 min
    Rediscovering Roots: Planner Jewell Littles Walton Uncovers Family Ties to Tulsa's Black Wall Street

    Rediscovering Roots: Planner Jewell Littles Walton Uncovers Family Ties to Tulsa's Black Wall Street

    Jewell Littles Walton is an urban planning and real estate professional with a career spanning multiple decades. She joins Dina Walters, a member of APA's Prioritize Equity team, for this special episode to share the story of uncovering her family’s connection to the early 20th century Greenwood neighborhood in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Greenwood was known as “Black Wall Street”, one of the most prosperous African-American communities in the United States, and was home to one of the nation’s worst race massacres. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/rediscovering-roots-planner-jewell-littles-walton-uncovers-family-ties-to-tulsas-black-wall-street/

    • 36 min
    Shain Shapiro on Taylor Swift and the Benefits of a Music Policy for Your City

    Shain Shapiro on Taylor Swift and the Benefits of a Music Policy for Your City

    When it comes to essential services and the stakeholders of a city, music and the people who make up a music ecosystem may not always be mentioned in the same breath as utilities and schools or residents and businesses. But music can enhance quality of life and plays an important role in generating prosperity for people, organizations and cities as a whole when it coexists harmoniously among its neighbors. Shain Shapiro has dedicated the last decade to helping cities embrace the value of music and plan for it with thoughtful policies. He wrote about his experience in his debut book, This Must Be the Place: How Music Can Make Your City Better. In this episode, Shapiro joins host Meghan Stromberg to discuss how planners can champion music policy in cities, as well as a case study of an American city that took a strategic approach to incorporating music in its long-term plan. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/shain-shapiro-on-taylor-swift-and-the-benefits-of-a-music-policy-for-your-city/

    • 25 min
    Taiwo Jaiyeoba on How Planners Can Lead Through Zoning Reform and by Crafting Equitable Comprehensive Plans

    Taiwo Jaiyeoba on How Planners Can Lead Through Zoning Reform and by Crafting Equitable Comprehensive Plans

    Addressing systemic racism and entrenched inequity has become an imperative for many institutions. Planners are in a unique position to make a big course correction on equity through comprehensive planning — if they embrace the opportunity to lead. On this episode of People Behind the Plans, Taiwo Jaiyeoba joins host Meghan Stromberg to talk about leading zoning reform efforts in Charlotte and Greensboro, North Carolina, both as a planning director and in his current role as city manager. He also shares his tips for winning over naysayers and his thoughts on what makes a good comprehensive plan. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/taiwo-jaiyeoba-on-how-planners-can-lead-through-zoning-reform-and-by-crafting-equitable-comprehensive-plans/

    • 27 min
    Robert Goodspeed on How Exploratory Scenario Planning Helps Imagine Uncertain Futures

    Robert Goodspeed on How Exploratory Scenario Planning Helps Imagine Uncertain Futures

    It seems the word “unprecedented” has been used so often to describe everything from the weather to public health in recent years that the only certainty is uncertainty. This makes the job of urban planners especially difficult as they try to anticipate what their cities will need in the decades to come. In the business world, a type of modeling called exploratory scenario planning (XSP) has been helping companies cope with volatility for decades. Now the idea is gaining traction among planners, thanks to the work of researchers like Robert Goodspeed, AICP. In this episode, APA Research Manager Joe DeAngelis, AICP, sits down with Goodspeed to talk about how XSP can help planners bring together disparate stakeholders and variables to build robust plans that can help cities prepare for whatever comes next — be it rain, shine, boom or bust. Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/robert-goodspeed-on-how-exploratory-scenario-planning-helps-imagine-uncertain-futures/

    • 22 min

Customer Reviews

4.5 out of 5
53 Ratings

53 Ratings

lewisfamily9 ,

What happened to these podcasts?

Why are they are no longer being posted? They were full of good content and then just stopped at the beginning of the year.

dr sogand ,

Transportation talk with OLATUNJI OBOI REED

I am a transportation engineer serving on the Equity Committee of ITE. I applaud Oboi for his powerful actions and appreciate his constructive criticism of transportation industry practice. Awesome podcast! Thank you.

poocrime ,

Some episodes good others not so much

I sometimes like this podcast and find the episodes informative. Can be a good way to learn about new writing and initiatives in planning. Other times they are the most surface-level, buzzword filled drivel of the sort that dominates the planning profession (ex: San Diego County episode). Would appreciate a more critical perspective. But that’s that APA for ya.

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