Largely a U.S. topic but is there still a place for purpose built properties for those 55+ but not yet retired?

Bought a Helokeep 26F a while ago because I was getting tired of starting the truck every time I needed groceries, takeout, or one random thing from a store two miles away. I honestly expected to use it once or thrice but it has made most of my short trips very easy and stress free. I no longer have to go find a parking spot for my truck or short car. I can park it in any designated spot.

Since bikes don't take up a lot of space it's just convenient when you park it just near the store. I mean, who wants the hustle and time wasting finding a car parking spot? No traffic anymore, I just run my short errands trips seemless.

Even though the bike lanes make no sense, like disappearing lanes or lanes that run into traffic, it still works for me.

I have a PhD in computer science and machine learning. My work has been focused on statistical models for networks, but I’ve always been interested in urbanism.

However while I always felt that somehow what I was doing was applicable to urban planing, I never really found a research direction that could combine both worlds.

Somehow it feels like instead urbanism problems are less data science in nature and oftentimes belong to the domain of politics, strategy and decision making which is quite orthogonal to machine learning.

Is anyone aware of urbanism problems (with real impact) that may require or could really benefits from data science and statistics skills? Are there use cases for AI beyond toy/“made up” problems (for instance traffic forecasting has attracted disproportionate attention in ML research although I am not sure how sound this problem is in urbanism, as the main solution to improve traffic is to propose alternatives to driving)?

Might sound weird but cities in the US a basically just a large amount of parking and large roads, could this empty space theoretically make it easier to make the “perfect” urban city with proper bike and transit infrastructure as compared to the old school European cities who were more constrained in design due to their already pretty dense natures?

It kinda sounds dumb but I can’t help but think that’s the case, probably because I want it to be true lol

It’s radical, offering a toolkit that can help Urbanists of all political persuasions improve our cities. Building state capacity, rightsizing regulations, and reducing rent seeking should be shared priorities across the political spectrum. We need them if we’re ever going to build great public transit systems or achieve real housing affordability or even maintain basic services like trash cleanup that make cities livable

Hi everyone,

I'm a final-year Computing student working on my dissertation for my project, a web-based platform that lets residents report urban infrastructure issues like potholes, broken streetlights, and illegal dumping.

As part of my research I need to interview a few professionals with experience in urban planning or municipal services. It's only 3 questions and would take around 10 minutes max. Happy to do it over Reddit DM, email, or whatever's easiest for you.

If you're open to it, drop a comment or send me a DM and I'll reach out with the questions.

Thanks in advance!

Hi, I am an urban Planner. My research interests lie in Participatory Planning, Community Engagement, Urban Heritage, Heritage Revitalization and Conservation, Community -les Urban Regeneration.

I am intending to apply for the Masters in Japan. Can anyone here help me out what are the specific problem/ challenges, Japan is facing in above-mentioned areas.

I will conduct research on that field / area of study.

Kindly do share your ideas.

It will help me find a direction.

I know I can do a literature study but I really wanna know it from experienced people of this field. What are the ground realities.

Thanks

I am basically asking for which cities provides the best mix of good walkability and good accessibility. A place that is not a suburban wasteland just because it is "accessible", and likewise a place that is not a nightmare for the differently-abled just because it ticks off the walkable in theory checklist.

I have been having a really hard time finding a satisfactory answer, and some of the cities that are champions in one of the criteria are in critical need of work in the other category.

This video shows a typical American suburban development. I think the idea of building lots of housing is great but it seems the execution of this developments are mediocre and probably won’t last very long. When these places are being built, more thought has to be given to the human experience of live there everyday.

I did an MPhil in English Literature (with research). My research focused on urban spaces, surveillance, and graphic novels. I'm interested in pursuing a PhD. I'm figuring out my research proposal nowadays.

I'm considering Urban studies, visual culture, and modern surveillance as key areas for research. I used Consensus and other tools to find a literature review, but I couldn't find a potential gap so far. I feel lost.

So, what are the emerging concepts/ processes or phenomena, etc., in the fields that I can consider for further research?

Often on urbanist/transit youtube and discussion forms, most European and east Asian cities are idealized and Amercan cities are demonized, but people often ignore or forget how most people don't want to live in a 'shoebox', or certainly don't want to raise a family in one.

Tokyo prefecture for example is known for their world-class urbanism revolving around their train system, but said urbansim only exsits because they have such a high population density in some of the most cramped homes on the planet. The average home size in all of tokyo is ~450 square feet whereas in NYC the average home size is between 750-950 square feet and NYC is known for having tiny homes but still has larger homes, on top of people having the option to commute by rail from outside the city.

Cramped homes are really dehumanizing (from personal experience) but are also incredibly unattractive for the average American who has the option of living in a massive house (relative to the rest of the world) and an average commute under half an hour in their own air conditioned car.

Another point worth bringing up is families. Whilst it is easier for to attract young people to live in cities, families make up the bulk of America and its really unachievable to expect them to live in an apartment with people above them. This is one of my own personal theories on why Europe and east Asia is having such a significant birth rate decline, their homes are incredibly small and so unattractive to have children in.

Looking at American data, the cities with the highest birth rates are the car-dependent single family home dominant cities like Indiannapolis, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio and Fresno whereas the lowest birthrates are in Seattle, Portland, SF and Boston. Of course there are a million factors that come to birth rates i.e. the larger families live in municipalities outside of the city limits, the named west coast cities are sanctuary cities for non-heterosexual demographics, etc. I just think there is also a correlation that could be made between urbanism and birthrates.

Finally nature, I'm an American living in Auckland, New Zealand and went backpacking in Japan for three weeks and found Tokyo to be unbearable. I was told stories by my dad who lived in Shibuya for 5 years about how he hated it for its cramped environment and lack of nature but I kind of brushed it off as him not being big into cities. I love big cities and am kind of tired of how small Auckland is, but after being in Tokyo for 12 days I realised how important nature is in a city. I guess my point is entirely anecdotal but access to shouldn't be given up for better urbanism and transit options. Whether that nature comes in the form of parks, easily accessible regional/national reserves, backyards, whatever, there needs to be some sort of greenery.

Having great urban fabic shouldn't come to the cost of people personal comfort. Most Americans really like having a separated house with some form of nature near them (like a backyard) and don't really care that they need a car for daily life. If urbanists want to move towards a more car-free America, the first people they need to think about is can a family be raised (happily) in the environment.

I think something like Chicago's or Philadelphia's row homes is a good middle ground, dense enough for small shops and frequent buses, and the occasional subway or regional rail line, but also gives enough space to have one's own house, a small front or backyard or a park nearby.

Would love to hear your thoughts! (This post kind of sounds like America glaze but i just wanted to point out that there are reasons why American's choose to live the way they do.)

Submission statement:

This ordinary-looking staircase is at the center of one of America’s most consequential housing debates.

In most of the United States, apartment buildings taller than three stories generally need two separate exit stairs. But architects, housing advocates, and lawmakers argue that this rule has also made many small apartment buildings difficult—or financially impossible—to construct.

The alternative is known as a point access block: an apartment building organized around one central stair and elevator core. Removing the second staircase can eliminate long interior corridors, make narrow infill sites easier to develop, and allow apartments to have windows on multiple sides. That can mean more daylight, better ventilation, and more practical three- and four-bedroom homes.

Critics see something more dangerous: the return of single-stair tenements and buildings with no backup escape route during a fire.

In this video, we examine how a staircase can shape an entire neighborhood. We compare Lincoln Park in Chicago, where older courtyard buildings and walk-up apartments became difficult to replace, with Capitol Hill in Seattle, where the building code has allowed single-stair residential buildings as tall as six stories under specific safety conditions.

But this video is not really just about stairs.

It is about how zoning laws, parking requirements, permitting systems, and building codes quietly determine which kinds of homes are possible. When cities make small apartment buildings illegal or uneconomical, development does not stop. It becomes concentrated into fewer, larger, and often more expensive options.

A single staircase will not solve the housing crisis. But it reveals how one technical rule can reshape apartment layouts, development economics, neighborhood demographics, and the kinds of cities America is able to build.

I was just gifted an XTEINK X4 e-reader. Normally I like the books in my hand but since I have this I'd like to check this thing out. Does anyone know of any good DRM-free (not Libby/Hoopla/Kindle) e-books for reading into urbanism? I'd like to check stuff out on the go.

Thanks!

Hi everyone, where would you recommend I do a master's or doctorate? I studied environmental studies in Argentina, and if I were to apply, I would definitely focus on land-use planning and adapting cities to climate change.

I'll soon be finishing my final project on green spaces in Buenos Aires. I focused on the concepts of green infrastructure and nature-based solutions. My thesis advisor suggested applying to Cambridge or Oxford, but I'm reaching out to you for opinions. If there were a university that specializes in this field of urban planning, which one would you consider the best?

I just wanted to share a website I've been developing called Urban Design Index

Link: urbandesignindex.com

Instagram: @urbandesignindex

Urban Design Index is a growing database of photos of urban design elements that designers find interesting. Photos that are uploaded are geo-located and placed on a map, so you know where they are. They are then categorized (as bollards, benches, lighting, etc,). You can also tag any designer, manufacturer, or product to the post, so that it can receive proper credit, although this isn't mandatory. If you don't know who made it, then maybe someone else does, and can edit those fields in the database.

I had this idea to gather photos that I've taken of any urban design conditions/street furniture that I see when i'm walking around, or even travelling. Usually, after taking a photo, I'll forget about it. When I'm back in the office, I'll usually spend a lot of time searching online for precedents, or at the last minute remember that I took a photo of something that inspired me from before.

I want this to be a tool that urban designers and landscape architects use to share great examples of urban design elements they see anywhere in the world.

If you have any great examples that you'd like to share with everyone, Please make an account, and upload them to the site!

I'm also open to making improvements, so please let me know what you think.

Woodbridge(Virginia, US) is building a new homeless shelter. Just don’t try to walk there

Kia Ora

I’ve released Crowd Count Version 2, a free open-source tool for estimating how many people can fit within indoor or outdoor spaces.

You can draw crowd zones on maps, adjust density, remove obstructions, create density gradients, and visualise crowds in 3D using satellite imagery and Google 3D Tiles. It may be useful for journalists, researchers, event planners, fact-checkers, and crowd-safety professionals.

Video tutorial: https://youtu.be/x5br6jshsyM

Feedback and suggestions for future features are very welcome.

Many thanks

Would like to ask what specific urbanist policies that the Saudi government did to turn Prophet Muhammad PBUH's town into a — really well-planned place even if it's under Crown Prince MBS. An important factor is the top-down planning here due to Saudi Government mechanisms, would like to know about the social dynamics also and did the urban planning rip out the social dynamics or improved it. Saudi Society is pretty cohesive around the monarchy, conservative in Sharia terms along with reverence to Allah. Thanks!

Hi,

I'm always hearing people talk about the improvments Paris has made to it's street in the last few years, I'm wondering whether there's any areas that highlight this really well that I could walk through and see when I'm there next week

Thank you :)