American Planning Association

Latest Episodes:

The Burlington Model: How Planning-Led Reforms Transformed the City's Housing Market Sep 09, 2024

Show notes

In this episode of the APA Podcast, Jason Jordan, APA's Principal of Public Affairs, chats with Burlington, Vermont's former mayor, Miro Weinberger, and former planning director, Meagan Tuttle, AICP. In this discussion, they share how they worked together to provide the political leadership and the critical insights needed for Burlington to enact one of the nation's most important and far-reaching reforms aimed at increasing housing supply.

Episode Sponsor: Booked on Planning

Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/the-burlington-model-how-planning-led-reforms-transformed-the-citys-housing-market/

Improvise, Innovate and Involve: 3 Planners Reveal the Importance of Flipping Your Perspective Aug 20, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to the third episode of Short Takes, a three-part miniseries from the American Planning Association. Short Takes, hosted by Sophia Burns, brings listeners into the field with planners pursuing inventive new approaches to everyday issues: community engagement, land use and zoning, and career advancement. In this episode, we share how three planners helped community members navigate change with deep listening, secret shopping, and sometimes leading by following. Listen as they share how putting themselves in stakeholders’ shoes ultimately made them a more informed and effective collaborator.

Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/improvise-innovate-and-involve-3-planners-reveal-the-importance-of-flipping-your-perspective/

Aspire, Advocate, and Advance: 2 Planners Talk Frankly About Career Challenges and Moving Up Jul 23, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to the second episode of Short Takes, a three-part miniseries from the American Planning Association. Short Takes, hosted by Sophia Burns, brings listeners into the field with planners pursuing inventive new approaches to everyday issues: community engagement, land use and zoning, and career advancement. In this episode, we dive into the journeys of two planners who have transformed career challenges into opportunities for growth. They share their strategies for coping with imposter syndrome, advocating for themselves, and advancing their careers. Listen as they recount handling negative comments with grace, confidently navigating tough conversations, and successfully negotiating for what they truly deserve.

Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/aspire-advocate-and-advance-2-planners-talk-frankly-about-career-challenges-and-moving-up/

Creativity, Compensation, and Culture: 3 Planners Share Community Engagement Innovations Jun 18, 2024

Show notes

Welcome to the first episode of Short Takes, a three-part miniseries from the American Planning Association. Short Takes, hosted by Sophia Burns, brings listeners into the field with planners pursuing inventive new approaches to everyday issues: community engagement, land use and zoning, and career advancement. This episode retraces three planners’ steps as they implement and evaluate novel approaches to community engagement. Tune in to hear how block parties, compensation policies, and "Frenchified" zoning puns are winning planners more face time with the communities they serve.

Episode URL: https://www.planning.org/podcast/creativity-compensation-and-culture-3-planners-share-community-engagement-innovations/

Housing Supply Accelerator: An Interview with National Association of Home Builders Chairman Carl Harris Jun 14, 2024

Show notes

In this second episode of the series, Emily Pasi, Director of Public Affairs at the American Planning Association, chats with Carl Harris, Chairman of the National Association of Home Builders. The two discuss the NAHB's role as a core partner in the Housing Supply Accelerator, as well as what some of the barriers home builders face to building more housing nationwide. They also look at some of the potential solutions that can help communities and developers work together to produce, preserve, and provide diverse, attainable, and equitable housing options.

Episode URL: https://www.planning.org/podcast/housing-supply-accelerator-an-interview-with-national-association-of-home-builders-chairman-carl-harris/

Housing Supply Accelerator: An Interview with National League of Cities CEO Clarence Anthony May 16, 2024

Show notes

In this first episode in a new series, Emily Pasi, director of public affairs at the American Planning Association chats with Clarence Anthony, CEO of the National League of Cities (NLC). Clarence and NLC are partners alongside APA on the Housing Supply Accelerator. The Housing Supply Accelerator is a national campaign to improve local capacity, identify critical solutions, and speed reforms that enable communities and developers to work together to produce, preserve, and provide diverse, attainable, and equitable housing by realigning the efforts of public and private stakeholders in the housing sector to meet housing needs at the local level. The two discuss the importance of elected officials, home builders, real estate professionals, bankers and community planners coming together to address the housing supply crisis; how partnerships can address housing supply barriers; the solutions outlined in the newly released Housing Supply Accelerator Playbook; and much more.

Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/housing-supply-accelerator-an-interview-with-national-league-of-cities-ceo-clarence-anthony/

National Zoning Atlas Founder Sara Bronin is Empowering Communities to Transform Land Use Apr 23, 2024

Show notes

Zoning reform has become a topic of national interest, not just among planners and local decision makers, but also in the national media and in everyday conversations. While the national housing crisis is well-documented, information on the role of local zoning rules has been harder to find — until now. The National Zoning Atlas is going state by state to create a map of local land use policies. It simplifies and unifies a multitude of data inputs, helping planners and community members to both make sense of zoning regulations and champion zoning reform. The brainchild of lawyer and Cornell University professor Sara C. Bronin, the National Zoning Atlas is proving to be a valuable advocacy tool.

In this episode, Bronin explains how an effort to Desegregate Connecticut paved the way for the National Zoning Atlas and how planners are contributing to — and benefiting from — this movement to demystify and democratize the policies that shape communities.

Episode URL: https://planning.org/podcast/national-zoning-atlas-founder-sara-bronin-is-empowering-communities-to-transform-land-use/

Megan Oliver on How to Plan for Happiness in Cities Apr 23, 2024

Show notes

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/

Anaid Yerena and Rashad Williams on Building an Equitable Future of Planning Dec 19, 2023

Show notes

The history of planning includes 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/

Rediscovering Roots: Planner Jewell Littles Walton Uncovers Family Ties to Tulsa's Black Wall Street Dec 14, 2023

Show notes

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/