The COVID-19 pandemic is challenging planners around the country to rethink how they work with various shelter-in-place and social distancing guidelines. One particular hurdle is how to continue with planning commission and other board meetings to keep communities moving forward. Emily Mack directs the Department of Metropolitan Development for the City of Indianapolis, Indiana. She chats with APA's Jo Peña about how, within a relatively short period of time, their team developed a standard operating procedure for the online meetings of their Metropolitan Development Commission, Board of Zoning Appeals, and other governmental functions. Mack also outlines the many lessons they've learned along the way while maintaining these critical government services.

Moving Planning Commission Meetings Online During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Big-City Perspective

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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/

National Zoning Atlas Founder Sara Bronin is Empowering Communities to Transform Land Use

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/

Megan Oliver on How to Plan for Happiness in Cities

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/

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

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/

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

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/

Moving Planning Commission Meetings Online During COVID-19 Pandemic: A Big-City Perspective

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