News

"No car? What if you need to make a Costco trip?"

One development in LA's answering that: by building apartments over a planned Costco.

The chain's business model of bulk purchases provides the biggest example of challenges in adapting sprawling development patterns to be more walkable, but the broader principle could lead to more urban grocery stores with less parking required.

https://www.costar.com/article/899472246/new-costco-design-with-apartments-overhead-has-property-brokers-buzzing?fbclid=IwAR2DMxJDNzcBZlNpcplVroNOUgMAXS3fZ-30gLLKiVu-XLclNjiledppuog

These AI-inspired images of cities are created using NightCafe and MidJourney, two popular services that use artificial intelligence (AI) to create images from text descriptions.

An AI image generation service creates images using a machine learning technique called Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs). To create images of cities, the AI is trained on images of cities, and then it can generate new images of a future city based on a prompt — a set of words or phrases provided by the image creator. The AI algorithm uses a feedback loop to improve the images it produces, making them increasingly realistic.

https://steins.medium.com/from-cyberpunk-barcelona-to-neo-tokyo-20-ai-generated-cities-you-have-to-see-4a22b47d2b78

Big dreams of an audacious 225mph bullet train from Boston to NYC were first introduced in 2021, and the time-saving idea is still in motion. 

Millions of people currently commute between Boston and New York City via Amtrak. The fastest train at the moment is the Acela Express which is usually about a 210-minute ride,providing the fastest possible ground transport between Boston and New York to this day. The bullet train from Boston to NYC proposes speeds of 225 miles per hour that would slash that commute in half to about 90 minutes!

https://bostonuncovered.com/bullet-train-boston-to-nyc/

“The 15-minute city principle suggests you should have your daily needs—work, food, healthcare, education, culture, and leisure—within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from where you live. It sounds pleasant enough, but in the minds of libertarian fanatics and the bedroom commentators of TikTok, it represents an unprecedented assault on personal freedoms.” — The Guardian

If you’re worried about the government confining citizens to life inside a walkable 15-minute box, then we invite you to the 15-Hour City: a metropolis so sprawling and convoluted to navigate only by car, you’ll need over half the day to accomplish the basic necessities of living.

In the 15-Hour City, the most important tenet is freedom of movement. Here, you can travel anywhere you want, as long as it’s on the handful of roads we afford to maintain with a gas-guzzling car that costs half your paycheck.

https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/introducing-the-15-hour-city

The Massachusetts Planning community will be coming together to for the Inaugural Massachusetts Distinguished Planner Annual Lecture. Practitioners, educators, and students from across the Commonwealth are welcome to attend the lecture and a reception to follow.  The Lecture recognizes and celebrates a retiring practitioner.  For this first year, Peter C. Lowitt, FAICP, will deliver the lecture.  This event is sponsored by the Massachusetts Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-MA), in collaboration with the state’s planning schools.  No registration required.

When:        March 29, 2023, at 4:00 pm

Where:       Alumnae Lounge, 40 Talbot Avenue

                  Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155 

The event is walking distance to the new Medford/Tufts stop (Green Line) and the Davis Square (Red Line) stop on the MBTA.  Parking is available at the Dowling Hall Garage, 419 Boston Avenue.

In order to make this Lecture a permanent part of the planning community in Massachusetts, we are seeking donations to create an endowment that would fund the Lecture indefinitely.  Please consider making a donation here: http://go.tufts.edu/MassPlannerLecture. 

Questions?  Please email Justin Hollander, PhD, FAICP: at  justin.hollander@tufts.edu 

Long time CPM member, Carol Todreas, presents an update on the state of retail.

https://nerej.com/keeping-the-there-there-by-carol-todreas

Consulting Planners of Massachusetts wishes all a happy start to 2023. As we look ahead to a new year —with plenty of exciting programming already in the works!— we also want to take a moment to reflect on our accomplishments in 2022. Read on for highlights from the past year and learn about the variety of events, programming and advocacy efforts made possible by the support of our members. 

2022 Highlights

• Eight in-person & virtual events hosted, including:
• • Creating a Race Equity Framework and Tools for Planners, a two-part workshop run by the YWCA and sponsored by BETA, Barrett Planning Group, Jacobs, Favermann Design, LAA and LDS on how planners can view their role through a racial justice lens. Participants earned AICP CM credits.

• Two new board members:
• • Mark Favermann and Lynne Sweet joined the CPM Executive Committee at the start of 2022 and their contributions have been invaluable. Lynne was also featured as our March '22 Planner of the Month. 

• Dozens of postings and updates published:
• • 107 RFPs, upcoming RFPs and job opportunities were posted to our website and sent in regular email digests to our members.
    
    
  • 26 news and professional updates were published on our website to keep you up to date on planning in the Commonwealth and at large.
    
    
  • Two letters from CPM were published in The Boston Globe highlighting the value and need for planning. 

• And more!
• • CPM presented the Distinguished Civic Leadership Award to Emmy Hahn (Mass. DHCD) at the APA-MA Annual Awards in December 2022, recognizing Hahn's tireless work for private sector planners. Read more on page 11 of the Winter 2023 MA-APA Planning Magazine.

We could not have accomplished so much in 2022 without the support of our members. We grew our membership by 21% and added a new membership tier of Circle Members, to recognize our super contributors for their exemplary support. Thank you to each and every one of our members for your contributions to CPM. We look forward to providing our network dedicated planning resources for another year! —and if you're thinking about becoming a member, you can learn more about the benefits of membership and join today.

Proposed zoning updates that would make it easier to convert office buildings in commercial districts to housing and other uses could yield up to 20,000 new housing units in the next decade...“Expanding the options available to these office buildings will help ensure our business districts’ vitality. And while housing is the top priority, we also need to think creatively about how offices can be turned into child care centers, schools, labs, and other uses we want to see.” 

https://www.planetizen.com/news/2023/01/120914-nyc-mayor-proposes-office-conversion-plan?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=news-01172023&mc_cid=4e42a24fe2&mc_eid=b9p0fICGm0

Gamble Associates, an architecture and planning firm in Cambridge, was awarded a BSA Design Award for its Riverfront Plan in Rochester, Minnesota. Projects selected for awards were those that “strive to be more inclusive, center economic development, and include community voices in the planning process.”

Comprehensive (aka long) story about the effects of 1936 redlining on Worcester neighborhoods today.

https://www.wbjournal.com/article/trapped-worcester-neighborhoods-still-suffer-from-the-legacy-of-redlining

Trapped_ Worcester neighborhoods still suffer from the legacy of redlining _ Worcester Business Journal.pdf