Planetizen is a planning-related news

website A website (also written as a web site) is a collection of web pages and related content that is identified by a common domain name and published on at least one web server. Examples of notable websites are Google, Facebook, Amazon, and W ...

and e-learning platform based in

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

, California. It features user-submitted and editor-evaluated news and weekly user-contributed op-eds about

urban planning Urban planning, also known as town planning, city planning, regional planning, or rural planning, is a technical and political process that is focused on the development and design of land use and the built environment, including air, water, ...

and several related fields. The website also publishes an annual list of the top 10 books in the field published during the current year, and a directory and ranking of graduate-level education in the field of urban planning. The name of the website is a concatenation of Plan, as in the word, planning, and

Netizen The term netizen is a portmanteau of the English words ''internet'' and ''citizen'', as in a "citizen of the net" or "net citizen". It describes a person actively involved in online communities or the Internet in general.

, a

portmanteau A portmanteau word, or portmanteau (, ) is a blend of wordsInternet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, p ...

and

citizen Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

. The website self-reports that it is visited by 1.5 million unique visitors each year. In 2006, the website also started publishing books, including the first urban planning book for children, ''Where Things Are, From Near to Far'', published in 2008 by Planetizen Press. This book was reviewed by ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

''. Their 2007 book "Planetizen's Contemporary Debates in Urban Planning", a collection of brief essays published by Island Press, received positive reviews.

Contributions

Planetizen introduced a much-needed broader perspective on city planning in the US, which very often extends into international practice as well. Coming out of the very formal car-oriented planning philosophy and practice following the Second World War, American urbanism risked becoming a dinosaur as it missed all the exciting New Urbanist practices being implemented. The great value of Planetizen was to juxtapose ALL planning practice and let readers judge the effectiveness of each idea. Coming as it did in the internet age, it provided, and continues to provide, an extremely useful central location for urbanists and planners to follow what is happening around the world. More than any other site, Planetizen is a clearing house of planning ideas, and its inclusivity without any ideological prejudice is both refreshing and invaluable.

Innovations and debates

Suburban sprawl

The major problem in developed economies is

urban sprawl Urban sprawl (also known as suburban sprawl or urban encroachment) is defined as "the spreading of urban developments (such as houses and shopping centers) on undeveloped land near a city." Urban sprawl has been described as the unrestricted growt ...

and its energy-devouring urban morphology. Planetizen has broadly championed the New Urbanist solutions while juxtaposing a variety of alternatives and criticisms. This interplay lays the groundwork for facing a difficult problem. Debate on Planetizen juxtaposes practical concerns of developers and government entities with the need for more sustainable urban fabric. Developers who build Sprawl are being educated towards new strategies for a more livable suburbia.

Informal settlements

In the Developing World, the major problem facing both economies and governments lies in owner-built settlements,

favelas Favela () is an umbrella name for several types of working-class neighborhoods in Brazil. The term was first used in the Providência neighborhood in the center of Rio de Janeiro in the late 19th century, which was built by soldiers who had ...

villas miserias A ''villa miseria'' (), or just ''villa'', is the informal term for a type of shanty town slum found in Argentina, mostly around the largest urban settlements. Name The term is a noun phrase made up of the Spanish words ''villa'' (''village'', ...

gecekondu Gecekondu (Turkish for ''put up overnight'', plural gecekondular) is a Turkish word meaning a house put up quickly without proper permissions, a squatter's house, and by extension, a shanty or shack. Gecekondu bölgesi is a neighborhood made of ...

, or slums by any other name. Here the debate is more difficult to access, because for a long time, the problems and solutions found in informal settlements have been either ignored or misinterpreted by mainstream planners. Solutions to this exponentially growing problem are not obvious. Planetizen has commendably brought attention to this other side of urbanism, so often ignored by the urban planning schools. For example, it sponsored a discussion on the Bombay slum Dharavi, which brought the topic of

slum clearance Slum clearance, slum eviction or slum removal is an urban renewal strategy used to transform low income settlements with poor reputation into another type of development or housing. This has long been a strategy for redeveloping urban communities; ...

versus upgrading to worldwide attention.

Skyscrapers/tall buildings

World economies and major construction companies are driven in part by building

megaproject A megaproject is an extremely large-scale investment project. According to the ''Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management'', "Megaprojects are large-scale, complex ventures that typically cost $1 billion or more, take many years to develop and ...

s, the most prominent component of which is one or more

skyscraper A skyscraper is a tall continuously habitable building having multiple floors. Modern sources currently define skyscrapers as being at least or in height, though there is no universally accepted definition. Skyscrapers are very tall high-ri ...

s. Planetizen has opened up the debate on skyscrapers more than once. A city has to balance the drive to build high, using high-tech, with the theoretical objections that skyscrapers drain the resources and energy from the region in which they are implanted. New skyscrapers are claimed to be eco-sustainable, but those claims have as many critics as they have proponents. Again, there is a need for a broad debate, and Planetizen contains many different and dissenting viewpoints on the question of skyscrapers as a viable building typology.

Planning Graduate Program Rankings

Planetizen has ranked planning graduate programs in the United States through six editions of its Guide to Urban Planning Graduate Programs, and has published the top 10 ranks on its website.

Criticism

Planetizen is often criticized for running news stories or user-contributed op-eds that are critical of current urban planning practices. Planetizen is also criticized by some urban planning educators in higher education for ranking graduate-level urban planning programs in the ''Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Education''.

Timeline

* February 2000 - Planetizen is created * August 2000 - First contributed op-ed, by

Anthony Downs Anthony Downs (November 21, 1930October 2, 2021) was an American economist specializing in public policy and public administration. His research focuses included political choice theory, rent control, affordable housing, and transportation ec ...

* February 2001 - Site recognized with an award for use of technology by the

American Planning Association The American Planning Association (APA) is a professional organization representing the field of urban planning in the United States. APA was formed in 1978, when two separate professional planning organizations, the American Institute of Pla ...

* September 2001 - James Howard Kunstler and Nikos A. Salingaros call for the end of skyscrapers in response to

September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks, commonly known as 9/11, were four coordinated suicide terrorist attacks carried out by al-Qaeda against the United States on Tuesday, September 11, 2001. That morning, nineteen terrorists hijacked four commer ...

, in an article on Planetizen, The End of Tall Buildings * November 2002 - First annual review of top 10 books in the field of urban planning * February 2005 - Planetizen moves to the

Drupal Drupal () is a free and open-source web content management system (CMS) written in PHP and distributed under the GNU General Public License. Drupal provides an open-source back-end framework for at least 14% of the top 10,000 websites worldwid ...

web publishing platform and documents the migration in an article for ''

Linux Journal ''Linux Journal'' (''LJ'') is an American monthly technology magazine originally published by Specialized System Consultants, Inc. (SSC) in Seattle, Washington since 1994. In December 2006 the publisher changed to Belltown Media, Inc. in Houston, ...

''. * March 2006 - Planetizen associate editor Nate Berg begins weekly

podcast A podcast is a program made available in digital format for download over the Internet. For example, an episodic series of digital audio or video files that a user can download to a personal device to listen to at a time of their choosin ...

about weekly urban planning issues * June 2006 - Planetizen Press publishes first ranking of graduate-level urban planning programs * May 2008 - Planetizen Press publishes second ranking of graduate-level urban planning programs * October 2009 - Planetizen publishes a list of the top 100 urban thinkers, as voted on by visitors to the website * April 2011 - Planetizen publishes a list of the top 25 thinkers in urban planning and technology * May 2011 - Planetizen publishes 2012 ranking of graduate-level urban planning] programs * October 2014 - Planetizen publishes 2015 ranking of graduate-level urban planning programs * February 2015 - Planetizen launches the first video courses focused on educating urban planners * June 2017 - Planetizen publishes 4th Edition ranking of graduate-level urban planning programs * October 2017 - Planetizen publishes a list of the 100 most influential urbanists. * May 2018 - Planetizen publishes Urban Design for Planners by Emily Talen.

Editors

The site was created in February 2000 by co-editors in chief Abhijeet Chavan and Chris Steins. In 2005 David Gest was appointed the first managing editor. Subsequent managing editors have included Christian Peralta Madera (2006), Timothy Halbur (2008), Jonathan Nettler, AICP (2012) and James Brasuell (2014).Planetize
staff
page.

Planetizen Press

Planetizen Press is the publishing arm of Planetizen, and has published several print books. *''Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs, 4th Edition''. Published by Planetizen Press (2014). *''Unsprawl: Remixing Spaces as Places''. Published by Planetizen Press (2013). *''Planetizen 2012 Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs''. Published by Planetizen Press (May, 2011). *''Insider's Guide to Careers in Urban Planning.'' Published by Planetizen Press (November, 2009). *''Where Things Are, from Near to Far: A Children's book about urban planning.'' Published by Planetizen Press (December, 2008). *''Planetizen 2009 Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs.'' Published by Planetizen Press (May, 2008). *''Planetizen 2007 Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs.'' Published by Planetizen Press (June, 2006).

References

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External links

Planetizen front page
American news websites Internet properties established in 2000 Academic works about urban studies and planning Sustainable transport pioneers New Urbanism Transport websites