How livable is your community? The AARP Livability Index sets out to tell residents just that, based on ratings in several categories: housing, neighborhood, transportation, environment, health, engagement, and opportunity. First launched in 2015, it was comprehensively updated in 2018. As senior strategic policy advisor with AARP Public Policy Institute’s Livable Communities team, Jana Lynott, AICP, was responsible for its development. She and host Courtney Kashima, AICP, talk about how the index is being used as a tool, but they also delve in to other areas of Jana's work, such as mobility as a service (MaaS), or universal mobility as a service. Most of the focus in transportation planning has been on how we move around cars, but universal mobility as a service looks at how we can best move around people. The two also discuss the language we use to talk about aging and why planners need to think about how the built environment affects people of all abilities.

People Behind the Plans: Jana Lynott, AICP

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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/

Housing Supply Accelerator: An Interview with National League of Cities CEO Clarence Anthony

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/

People Behind the Plans: Jana Lynott, AICP

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