The Urban Portal

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American Planning Association (APA)

APA is an independent, not-for-profit educational organization that provides leadership in the development of vital communities. The American Planning Association was created in 1978 by the consolidation of two separate planning organizations, but its roots go all the way back to 1909 and the first National Conference on City Planning in Washington, D.C.

Filed under: Organizations

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Can anchor institutions build communities?

In a profile of Manhattan’s Morningside Heights neighborhood, the New York Times described the area dominated by Columbia University and Barnard College as one of the most desirable places to live in Manhattan. The universities are “anchor institutions,” acting as real estate developers, generators of human capital, and employers. So far, the academic and political debate about these organizations has not resolved whether these strategic investments build community and revitalize neighborhoods.

June 01, 2012

Filed under: Issues

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Can public art reverse urban decay?

American cities as diverse as Detroit, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Cleveland, have made significant investments over the past few decades in community-based art projects. One example is Philadelphia’s Mural Arts Project. Since 1984, the project has created over 3,000 murals, generating a slew of tourist attractions. Such considerable investments by Philadelphia and other cities beg the question of whether arts projects, aside from their aesthetic value, will have lasting effects on the community.

December 01, 2011

Filed under: Issues

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Center for Urban and Regional Studies

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
Created in 1957, the Center for Urban and Regional Studies is one of the oldest university-based research centers of its kind. The Center's mission is to promote and support within UNC-Chapel Hill, high-quality basic and applied research on urban, regional and rural planning and policy issues. The Center seeks to generate new knowledge of urban and regional processes and problems and ultimately to improve living conditions in our communities. This is done by involving the University's faculty and graduate students in large, multidisciplinary research projects and smaller, more narrowly focused projects. The Center's mission also includes promoting the use of the research it facilitates.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Ukraine)

As an institute of historical scholarship, we seek to offer fresh intellectual impulses and help abandon dated questions and preconceived answers. By information and open discussion, we try to help prevent history from being abused for political ends. Through conferences, seminars and exhibitions we hope to promote scholarly and cultural exchange.

Filed under: Organizations

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Center for Urban Policy Research

Rutgers University
The Center for Urban Policy Research conducts basic and applied research on a broad spectrum of public policy issues, including affordable housing, land use policy, environmental impact analysis, state planning, public finance, land development practice, historic preservation, infrastructure assessment, development impact analysis, the costs of sprawl, transportation information systems, environmental impacts, and community economic development. 

Filed under: Organizations

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Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development

DePaul University
The Chaddick Institute, located at DePaul University in Chicago, advances the principles of effective land use, transportation and community planning. Founded in 1993, the institute offers planners, attorneys, developers, and entrepreneurs a forum to share expertise on difficult land-use issues through workshops, conferences and policy studies.

Filed under: Organizations

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Chicago Policy Review

University of Chicago
Since 1996 the Chicago Policy Review (CPR) has published top scholarship in the field of public policy analysis. Initially a forum for renowned scholars and policy experts such as Nobel Laureate James Heckman, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator John McCain, the journal has primarily published the work of students and alumni of the Harris School of Public Policy Studies at the University of Chicago since 2006.

The Chicago Policy Review (ISSN: 1093-8990) is edited and published annually by the students of the Irving B. Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies. By establishing linkages between theory and practice, the Review aims to promote thought provoking, insightful, and relevant public policy decision-making.

Filed under: Journals

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Cities in the 21st Century

International Honors Program
Cities in the 21st Century program examines the intentional and natural forces that guide the development of the world’s cities. It combines an innovative urban studies academic curriculum with fieldwork involving public agencies, planners, elected officials, NGOs and grassroots groups in important world cities where exciting changes are taking place.

Filed under: Links

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Citiwire.net

Citiwire.net's mission is to reflect a new narrative for 21st century cities and regions.   Leaving behind the 20th century pattern of cheap energy, endless automobility, burgeoning suburbs, threatened inner cities.  To a challenge-packed 21st century: energy prices headed north, perilous carbon emissions, deepening have-have not divisions, excruciating social problems and deep challenges in education.  But a time of exciting promise, too: for example rejuvenated downtowns, revival of classic walkable neighborhood form, new citistate-wide consciousness, more protected lands, upgrading rather than bulldozing developing world slums.  Citiwire.net’s quest: to chronicle struggles, illuminate pathways to more vibrant, equitable, sustainable choices for grassroots America and urban regions worldwide.

Filed under: Links

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City, Culture, and Society

The 21st century has been dubbed the century of cities - sustainable cities, compact cities, post-modern cities, mega-cities, and more. CCS focuses on urban governance in the 21st century, under the banner of cultural creativity and social inclusion. Its primary goal is to promote pioneering research on cities and to foster the sort of urban administration that has the vision and authority to reinvent cities adapted to the challenges of the 21st century. The journal aims to stimulate a new interdisciplinary paradigm that embraces multiple perspectives and applies this paradigm to the urban imperative that defines the 21st century.

Topics of special interest to CCS include urban economics, cultural creation, social inclusion, social sustainability, cultural technology, urban governance, sustainable cities, creative cities. As a peer-reviewed international journal, CCS welcomes contributions from disciplines including but not limited to economics, business, accounting, planning, political science, architecture, geography, sociology, historiography, cultural studies, population studies and public administration.

Filed under: Journals

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City-Region Studies Centre

University of Alberta
The City-Region Studies Centre (CRSC) is a University of Alberta research unit that engages with communities to explore the nature of towns, cities, and regions.  CRSC is one of the only centres in North America to focus on regional research. To do this, we undertake both engaged and theoretical activities, work with clients, sponsor events, host visiting experts and public lectures, and maintain a global set of links with planners and academics, and cities and institutes. We are the portal to urban and regional teaching and research at the University of Alberta.

CRSC's goal is to increase understanding of the cultural, political, economic interactions and interdependencies within these social spaces and to inform public policy and improve the well-being of citizens.

Filed under: Organizations

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Congress for the New Urbanism

Nonprofit organization focused on sustainable, walkable, community development.

Filed under: Organizations

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Creative City Network of Canada

Municipalities are playing a growing role in the development of arts, culture and heritage in Canada. The Creative City Network of Canada (CCNC) is an organization of municipal staff working in communities across Canada on arts, cultural and heritage policy, planning, development and support.

The CCNC exists to connect and educate the people who do this work and share this working environment so we can be more effective in cultural development in our communities. By sharing experience, expertise, information and best practices, members support each other through dialogue, both in person and online.

Filed under: Organizations

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Environmental Design Library

University of California, Berkeley
One of the premier architecture, landscape architecture, and city and regional planning libraries in North America, the Environmental Design Library is a subject specialty library of the UC Berkeley Library system.

Filed under: Links

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Forgotten Chicago

The main goal of Forgotten Chicago is to discover and document little known elements of Chicago’s infrastructure, architecture, neighborhoods and general cityscape, whether existing or historical.

Secondarily, the hope is that exposing many of the often overlooked elements of Chicago’s built environment to a wider audience will result in more interest in their preservation. Certainly, much of the content on the site is included mainly for documentation and historical reasons, and of course not every old structure in the city is worthy of being preserved. However, some of the structures included on the site are little known but of important architectural and historical interest. The hope is that their inclusion will raise public awareness and result in their preservation rather than demolition in the future.

Filed under: Links

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Fourth International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Emotional Geographies

July 1–July 3, 2013
University of Groningen
Groningen, The Netherlands

Filed under: Events

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GIS Lounge

Information and news site about geographic information systems, GPS, cartography, and remote sensing. GIS Lounge publishes items of interest to the geospatial community. GIS Lounge has has sections for job listings, geospatial press releases, and events.

Filed under: Links

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Global City Indicators

The Global City Indicators Program provides an established set of city indicators with a globally standardized methodology that allows for global comparability of city performance and knowledge sharing. This website serves all cities that become members to measure and report on a core set of indicators through this web-based relational database.

Filed under: Links

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Goethe-Institute

A German Institute devoted to architecture, urban space, city research, town planning, and urban development.

Filed under: Organizations

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How should we design urban parks?

Most major cities have one or more large parks. As geographer Terence Young has explained, parks proliferated across modern cities to help stem the departure of middle-class and affluent residents in the wake of industrialization at the beginning of the nineteenth century. Parks were considered a panacea for social ills as varied as crime, illness, and poor mental health. In recent years, scientists have taken a fresh look at parks and their role in the quality of urban life.

February 01, 2012

Filed under: Issues

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Initiative for Regional and Community Transformation

Rutgers University
The Initiative for Regional and Community Transformation (IRCT) is a university-based effort that helps community residents and leaders in the public and private sectors frame workable policies that will bolster the political, economic, and social participation of marginalized communities within the larger metropolitan community. The IRCT's vision is inclusive. Not only does it encompass concerns for the poor, but leaders of the Initiative also believe that in order for metropolitan regions to support sustainable and livable communities, all sectors of civil society must be involved and see a shared interest.

Filed under: Organizations

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Institute of Urban and Regional Development

University of California-Berkeley
IURD conducts collaborative, interdisciplinary research and practical work that reveals the dynamics of communities, cities, and regions and informs public policy.
Rooted in the social sciences, IURD's work has steadily gained recognition since its inception over 40 years ago. IURD has become the gateway to the university for those concerned with urban and regional issues—infrastructure, housing, sprawl, transportation, environmental quality, disaster recovery, and poverty and physical decline in inner cities—as well as a home for scholars who integrate real-world metropolitan problem-solving in their teaching and research.

Filed under: Organizations

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International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture, and Urbanism

The International Network for Traditional Building, Architecture & Urbanism (INTBAU) is an international educational charity which works under the Patronage of HRH The Prince of Wales to promote traditional architecture, urbanism and crafts. The central office of the organization is based in London, United Kingdom. 17 national Chapters of INTBAU are established as independent, affiliated charities in countries around the world.

INTBAU is a world wide organization dedicated to the support of traditional building, the maintenance of local character and the creation of better places to live. We are creating an active network of individuals and institutions who design, make, maintain, study or enjoy traditional building, architecture and places.

INTBAU's architecture and urban design workshops bring together practitioners, artisans and students. By education and training in traditional architecture, urbanism and the building crafts, we encourage people to maintain and restore traditional buildings, and to build new buildings and places that contribute to traditional environments and improve the quality of life in cities, towns and villages around the world.

Filed under: Organizations

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Journal of the American Planning Association

American Planning Association
Since 1935, the quarterly Journal of the American Planning Association has published research, commentaries, and book reviews useful to practicing planners, policy makers, scholars, students, and citizens of urban, suburban, and rural areas. JAPA publishes only peer-reviewed, original research and analysis. It aspires to bring insight to planning the future, to air a variety of perspectives, to publish the highest quality work, and to engage readers.

Filed under: Journals

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Journal of Urban Design

The Journal of Urban Design is a scholarly international journal which advances theory, research and practice in urban design. There is a growing recognition of the need for urban design in shaping, managing and improving the quality of the urban environment. It is now considered one of the core knowledge components of planning education and practice and is equally important for architectural education and practice. Thus, increasing numbers of architects, planners, surveyors, landscape architects and other professions concerned with the quality of urban development are specialising in urban design.

The Journal of Urban Design provides a new forum to bring together those contributing to this re-emerging discipline and enables researchers, scholars, practitioners and students to explore its many dimensions. The Journal publishes original articles in specialised areas such as urban aesthetics and townscape; urban structure and form; sustainable development; urban history, preservation and conservation; urban regeneration; local and regional identity; design control and guidance; property development; practice and implementation.

Filed under: Journals

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Mapping London

Highlighting the best of maps of London. Mapping people, places, data, things

Filed under: Data

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Mapping Medieval Townscapes

Archaeological Data Service
This resource derives from the Mapping the Medieval Urban Landscape research project which began in 2003 with two years of funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

Using mapping as a medium, the project examined how urban landscapes were shaped in the middle ages; the project furthers an understanding of the forms and formation of medieval towns. It is the first project to have used spatial technologies – Geographical Information Systems (GIS) and Global Positioning Systems (GPS) – as a basis for mapping and analyzing medieval urban landscapes. 

Filed under: Links

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Mural Locator

Mural Locator is a simple to use web tool for helping people locate murals around the world to discover the art around us. Our goal is to find locations of amazing public art wall murals to share them with you and to help archive the history and importance of murals. We connect with artists, muralists, and art foundations to expand the knowledge of art. 

Filed under: Links

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Neptis Foundation

The focus of Neptis’s work is the understanding of urban regions– their pasts, present conditions, and futures, in local and global contexts. In particular, Neptis’s interest is the design of urban regions: that is, their use of land, their built environments, and their modes of transportation.

The role of Neptis is to carry out nonpartisan research, data collection, mapping, and publication related to the architecture of urban regions, to improve the quality of debate and decisions. The foundation’s mode of operation is to initiate, support, and publish research by leading academics and other experts on aspects of regional urbanism. Neptis does not represent any special interest group.

Neptis’s program of research has produced over 30 published studies, all of which are available to all interested members of the public in various forms – reports, CDs, downloads, maps, and summaries.

Filed under: Organizations

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Next American City

Next American City is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, dedicated to promoting socially and environmentally sustainable economic growth in America’s cities and examining how and why our built environment, economy, society and culture are changing. We achieve this goal through the publication of our quarterly magazine and interactive website, our emerging leaders program, events across the country, and advocacy on issues central to the future of cities. Through these programs, we observe, document, and conceive realistic solutions about how to improve cities—how to ensure that future generations’ lives are improved, and not made more dangerous or unnecessarily complicated by the decisions we make. We do so from the front lines of urban change and innovation.

Filed under: Links

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Next City

University of Washington
As a public research institution located in the heart of a globally connected metropolitan area, with deep faculty expertise in urban fields, the University of Washington is helping to find informed solutions to the challenges and opportunities presented by the new urban age.   Faculty research is helping urban leaders and citizens across the globe make their cities healthier, safer, and greener.  Partnerships with professionals and community members are making this region a recognized leader in innovative urban design, planning, and governance. Students are learning about cities in the classroom, conducting urban research, and contributing to community well-being through urban service – here in Seattle as well as in other nations and continents.  Events across the university bring leading urban thinkers to campus and engage the wider community in conversations about cities past, present, and future.

Under the leadership of Provost Phyllis Wise, NEXT CITY: Sustainable Urbanization is serving as a university-wide theme between 2009 and 2011 to focus attention on the University of Washington’s urban teaching, research, and outreach activities.  Cities and their people are the emphasis of major university lecture series, seminars, cultural and education events, and public roundtables on the challenges and opportunities of urbanization.   New research initiatives, courses, and partnerships with the community are bringing together Washingtonians and others in discovering more about the twenty-first century’s urban age.  Explore this website, and join the conversation.

Filed under: Organizations

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Places: The Design Observer Group

Design History Foundation
Founded 28 years ago by architecture faculty at MIT and Berkeley, Places is an interdisciplinary journal of contemporary architecture, landscape and urbanism, with particular emphasis on the public realm as physical place and social ideal. Places is a 501(c)3 organization, published by the Design History Foundation and supported by a consortium of U.S. universities as well as organizational and individual sponsors.

In 2009 Places published its last print issue and moved online as an open-access journal in partnership with the Design Observer Group. In this new format, Places publishes peer-reviewed scholarship as well as topical commentary, observations, reviews and visual portfolios, with two new articles every week. The entire print archive is also available in pdf format.

In Places’ first issue, published by MIT Press in July 1983, editors Donlyn Lyndon and Wiliam L. Porter articulated themes that motivate the journal to this day: to focus on “public spaces in the service of shared and egalitarian ideals of society” and to explore “the highest standards of public responsibility and design.” Like our colleagues in the Design Observer Group, we are committed to design as a catalyst of change.

Filed under: Journals

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Practicing Planner

American Planning Association; American Institute of Certified Planners (AICP)
The American Institute of Certified Planners'  online quarterly provides a forum to analyze, critique, and review issues that affect professional planning practice.

Filed under: Journals

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Project for Public Spaces

Project for Public Spaces (PPS) is a nonprofit planning, design, and educational organization dedicated to helping people create and sustain public spaces that build stronger communities. Our pioneering Placemaking approach helps citizens transform their public spaces into vital places that highlight local assets, spur rejuvenation, and serve common needs.

Filed under: Organizations

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Public Art Online

A unique public art information site which provides guidance and examples of public art practice from around the UK and internationally.  

Filed under: Links

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Research Committee 21

International Sociological Association
Research Committee 21 (RC21) on the Sociology of Urban and Regional Development of the International Sociological Association was established in 1970 to promote theory and research in the sociology of urban and regional development, and - in so doing - create an international community of scholars who will advance the field.

At a time when cities, towns, and regions, and the world more broadly, are undergoing profound change, these international links are of critical importance for promoting and advancing scholarship. Web pages, such as this, and e-mail, provide mechanisms for more easily enabling and maintaining these contacts.

Through this page, we wish to provide as much information as possible, both to RC21 members and non members, including providing links to other sites of interest.

Filed under: Organizations

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