Journal of Planning Education and Research current issue

Report from the Editors

Weiping Wu, , Brooks, M. — 2008-08-26

Deliberating on Statewide Energy Targets

Andrews, C., Jonas, H. C., Mantell, N., Solomon, R. — 2008-08-26

This article reflects on a process of analytic deliberation about the future energy economy of New Jersey. Scenario analysis looking forward thirty years identifies tradeoffs and synergies among environmental, economic, and security objectives identified by stakeholders. Modest, unilateral greenhouse gas reductions seem affordable and may improve energy security. More dramatic, long-term greenhouse gas reductions seem less feasible given current technologies and policies, indicating the need for research now to invent "Solution X." The two-year effort has helped align expectations among divergent policy actors and also helped embolden political leaders, who have acted in parallel with this project rather than waiting for its conclusion.

Local Government Efforts to Promote the "Three Es" of Sustainable Development: Survey in Medium to Large Cities in the United States

Saha, D., Paterson, R. G. — 2008-08-26

The purpose of this article is to find out the extent to which local governments in the United States are committed to the principles of sustainable development in their planning practices. This study presents the findings from a survey of all medium to large cities carried out in April 2006. The findings indicate that, instead of adopting sustainable development as a development framework, cities are adopting sustainability initiatives in a piecemeal, ad-hoc manner. A broader level commitment to the concept, as evidenced by presence of sustainability plans, indicators project measuring progress toward sustainability goals, or an office and staff devoted to sustainability activities, is exhibited by very few cities. Finally, there is little evidence that cities are connecting sustainability to equity and social justice issues.

Color Blind: Indigenous Peoples and Regional Environmental Management

Lane, M. B., Williams, L. J. — 2008-08-26

The dominant approach to environmental management in Australia involves the decentralization of authority and resources to regionally organized citizen boards or statutory committees. The article examines Australian Indigenous participation in a national environmental management program— the Natural Heritage Trust. This program emphasizes regionally scaled implementation and community engagement and ownership. The management of Indigenous lands is of increasing importance in Australia because of the size of this estate, its environmental value, and its role in Indigenous community and economic development. Programmatic efforts to assist Indigenous landowners manage their lands have been largely unsuccessful. This research is concerned with understanding whether regionally scaled, civic approaches to environmental management enable improved levels of Indigenous participation. Results show that this regional environmental management program achieved poor levels of Indigenous participation. This finding, the authors suggest, has important implications for the optimistic claims made about regional environmental management.

Planners Learning and Creating Power: A Community of Practice Approach

Schweitzer, L. A., Howard, E. J., Doran, I. — 2008-08-26

Learning networks, such as a community of practice, can be an important way for planners to gain access to, and power in, new professional knowledge domains. In this manuscript, the authors develop, implement, and evaluate a community of practice model for planning education and practice in energy and sustainability planning. The authors find that although this active, learner-centered method helps enable flexible, self-directed study for those learning new content, there is a strong need for leadership in heterogeneous learning networks to help participants overcome problems created by social position and structuration within the network. New knowledge formation within learning networks ultimately challenges some of the planning profession's fundamental assumptions about the validity of "moving knowledge into practice" in contexts with uncertainty.

Innovations in Urban Design and Urban Form: The Making of Paradigms and the Implications for Public Policy

Garde, A. M. — 2008-08-26

How might innovations in urban design influence urban form? This paper focuses on two types of innovations—identified here as degenerative variations and integrative paradigms—to examine their impact on urban form and to discuss the implications for public policy. The paper begins with a presentation of how degenerative variations collectively generate an undesirable urban form. The paper then illustrates how integrative paradigms are conceived as a response to the problems of development of a particular period and the transformation of urban form. These paradigms are expected to nurture a collective vision and have a positive impact on urban form; however, they are undermined by the realities of development. The paper concludes with a discussion of the policy implications of innovations in urban design.

Implications of Adolescents' Perceptions and Values for Planning and Design

Passon, C., Levi, D., del Rio, V. — 2008-08-26

Adults are responsible for selecting and creating the environments where their children and youth live, but it is not clear if these places contain the qualities that young people value. In this study, high school students from three communities were surveyed regarding their perceptions of where they live to determine whether indicators identified by previous research as qualities that youth value are present in those communities and perceived to be important. Although the results suggest the indicators are important to the adolescents, their communities lack a majority of them and this has contributed to low satisfaction ratings. Recommendations for better integrating adolescents into public participation processes are discussed along with implications for planning and design.

The Economic Value of Office Clusters: An Analysis of Assessed Property Values, Regional Form, and Land Use Mix in King County, Washington

Sohn, D.-W., Moudon, A. V. — 2008-08-26

This study seeks to provide supportive information for the planning of existing or new employment centers in metropolitan regions. It examines how the spatial concentration of office uses and their combination with other land uses affects the assessed value of office properties. The goal is to measure the spatial clustering of office uses and the clusters' physical characteristics to quantify their association with office property values. The characteristics of interest include cluster size, regional location and relationship to transportation infrastructure, internal land use mix, and transportation network. The study revealed that recent office development has continued to benefit economically from agglomeration. Office property values seemed to be most positively affected by, in order of importance, the intensity of office development, a central regional location, and the clustering or agglomeration of office parcels.

Are Portland's Smart Growth Policies Related to Reduced Automobile Dependence?

Jun, M.-J. — 2008-08-26

This study evaluates how successful smart growth policies in Portland, best known for its smart growth policies such as the urban growth boundary, extensive public transit service, and transit-oriented developments along the transit corridors, are in achieving one of their policy objectives, a reduction of automobile dependence. Empirical evidence reveals that more diversified land use in neighborhoods, more extensive provision of public transit service, and decreasing accessibility to freeway interchanges were associated with fewer choices of driving alone, while making settlements compact via the urban growth boundary and transit-oriented developments has no clear relationship with reducing the choice to drive alone. Empirical analyses also suggest that provision of public transit service and mixed land use implemented at residential zones (origins) were more effective in reducing automobile dependence than those implemented at places of work (destinations).

Commentary: Assessing Student-Authored Articles in "Urban Planning"

Maghelal, P. K. — 2008-08-26

Performance of universities and academic programs has been historically analyzed based on factors such as faculty quality and research, scholarship, and publication output. However, the contribution of students as authors of academic peer-reviewed journal articles has been overlooked in these performance assessments. This commentary seeks to highlight this issue, as well as to illustrate an analytical approach to further our understanding of doctoral planning student-authored articles (SAA). Results for (1) fourteen planning-focused journals with the most SAAs, (2) Carnegie classifications of SAA institutional affiliations, and (3) the influence on journal impact factor are presented, as well as recommendations for journals, students, faculty/mentors, investigators and institutions.

Review: The Warhol Economy: How Fashion, Art, and Music Drive New York City, by Elizabeth Currid. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 2007. 280 pages. $27.95 (hardback)

Grazian, D. — 2008-08-26

Review: Remaking the North American Food System: Strategies for Sustainability, edited by C. Clare Hinrichs and Thomas A. Lyson. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. 2008. 384 pages. $45.00 (hardback)

Lapping, M. B. — 2008-08-26

Review: Badlands of the Republic: Space, Politics and Urban Policy, by Mustafa Dikec. Malden, MA/Oxford, UK: Wiley-Blackwell. 2007. 240 pages. $84.95 (hardback). $39.95 (paperback)

Hargreaves, A. G. — 2008-08-26

Review: Growth Management in Florida: Planning for Paradise, edited by Timothy S. Chapin, Charles E. Connerly, and Harrison T. Higgins. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate Publishing. 2007. 338 pages. $89.95 (hardback)

Daniels, T. L. — 2008-08-26