Urban Planning Blog

“Neighbors can hear the alarm so they call us, but when we get up to the home, it's vacant, locked up and we're unable to access them,” Such calls are distracting firefighters from other more important calls in inhabited homes and putting a strain on the public emergency system. via ABC15 News.

Model cities aren’t just for show; they can have real utility. In 1957 the US Army Corps of Engineers created the Bay Model, a replica of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento/San Joaquin Delta meant to simulate the impact of public works projects and disasters—natural and man-made—on currents and tides. Terence Russell at Wired Magazine [...]

This paper by Andrew Healy [PDF link], an economist at Loyola Marymount University concludes that “on average, every $1 spent on disaster mitigation prevents roughly $8 of disaster damage over the following five years” but voters tend to reward disaster response and recovery efforts more as compared to disaster preparedness leading to governments underpreparing for [...]

Much is being said about the grand libertarian experiment in rebuilding New Orleans. We saw how reforming the education system was considered a case against public education and overall government intervention. Nicole Gelinas at the City Journal looks at the urban renewal efforts in New Orleans that are taking a similar libertarian slant and at [...]

Couple of colleagues in a Sustainable Urbanism class had proposed floating homes as a potential solution for homes in New Orleans. This floating villa designed by Swedish architect, Staffan Strindberg, currently situated in the town of Kalmar on the east coast of Sweden may be a tad fancy for residents of New Orleans especially for [...]

The folks at Freakonomics pose an interesting question – What’s wrong – and what’s right – with American disaster preparedness and response? They talk with five experts who have an indepth understanding of disaster management and risk handling. Some excerpts: Americans increasingly insist on living in dense, vertical cities near water. About 91 percent of [...]

Trailer homes always have had a bad rap in architecture. But recent innovations especially with respect to post-disaster emergency housing has led to some beautiful and innovative creations.

In today’s age of unpredictable weather and rampant flooding, the Dutch are leading the way with creating amphibious houses. As I mentioned before, we can forget about controlling nature (levees, etc.) and instead focus on adapting our living to minimize damages when weather turns foul.

The recent flooding in the Midwest reminds us again of the tenuous relationship we share with nature. Living at the whim and idiosyncrasies of the weather may imply that we are merely victims but if you look close, we may be as much if not more to blame due to our locational choices. But do [...]

In light of the bridge collapse in Minnesota, the American Society of Civil Engineers’ 2005 report on the nation’s infrastructure should be re-read by policy makers. ASCE estimates that $1.6 trillion is needed over a five-year period to bring the nation’s infrastructure to a good condition

Alex Staffen at WorldChanging gives a thumbs up to Worldwatch’s new report on the State of the World in which they cite that by the end of 2010, we would have nearly 3.5 billion urbanites. Alex particularly likes the chapters that address the crossover between the urban and the natural regions of the world that [...]

Land use planning can be used as an effective tool in reducing the economic and social risks of natural hazards. The local governments provide the better authority to implement planning mitigation strategies due to extensive and comprehensive potential for tapping into community resources and public participation. The local governments are also in a better position [...]

Protecting areas subject to natural hazards is often a dilemma between balancing economic and legal uses of land and promoting public safety and protecting the lives of residents. The government’s role in protecting the people from natural hazard must tread the line between safety and not infringing on property rights of land owners. The federal, [...]