Interested in urban design or the work of noted urbanist Jane Jacobs? These topics and much more are addressed in these fine podcasts from the American Planning Association (APA). The podcasts are updated on a semi-regular basis and visitors will note that some of the more recent offerings include conversations with author Tony Hiss about "deep travel" and a panel discussion on streetscape...

This site advocates less dependence on automobile transportation, and proposes suggestions for technologies and city layouts that would eliminate the need for it altogether. Some of the most interesting discussion concerns city topology, suggesting a six-lobe design. Each lobe is divided into many districts, and can support up to two million people (twelve million in all). A heavy-rail metro is...

Drawing on the expertise of a team of editors who reside in Britain, Germany, Spain, Mexico, France, and a number of other countries, the City Mayors organization is an "international network of professionals working to promote strong cities and good local government." Their website takes on all of the important urban issues of the day, including governance, affordable housing, sustainable...

Chicago's citywide community policing program (CAPS), the largest in the nation, combines officers placed in long-term assignments and trained in problem-solving with numerous opportunities for public involvement and input in community meetings and advisory committees. Unlike similar programs in other cities, CAPS has enjoyed significant citizen involvement, with some of the highest beat meeting...

Are we in the age of the smart city? Will everyday existence be transformed by big data and its broad scale application to a range of public services and other central issues? This thoughtful set of meditations was released in June 2014 by scholars at the Wilson Center's Urban Sustainability Laboratory. The cities profiled in this report are New York, Ahmedabad, Sao Paulo, and Beijing, and...

The University of Pennsylvania has one of the most respected schools of education in the United States, and, with this first edition of the online journal Perspectives on Urban education, they continue with one of their prime interest areas, namely that of urban educational outreach and scholarship. As their mission statement suggests, "The purpose of an electronic journal format is to provide a...

Are you curious to learn more about cities? You'd do well to make a beeline for the Places Wire site, which offers a cornucopia of material on urban parks, public policy, architecture, planning, and other topics. In sum total, the site is a "curated feed of news and commentary on architecture, landscape and urbanism." The site has partnered with 20 different organizations to provide new content on...

Policy institutions around the United States spend a staggering $1.5 billion on research each year. Many of them do an excellent job in terms of putting their policy papers, working papers, factsheets, and so on online for use by the public and scholars. Of course, it can be very difficult to locate some of them, and that's where the Policy Archive steps in. Sponsored by the Center for...

Beginning in the early 1990s, the urban cores of many American cities experienced a building renaissance, with the construction of new commercial buildings and tourist-themed facilities continuing apace for over a decade. Despite this development, inner city retail development has generally stagnated over the past few years, with the exception of a few cities. In this 32-page report released in...

The issue of concentrated poverty is one that continues to engage the attention of social workers, politicians, and scholars alike. In this intriguing 24-page report from the Brooking Institution's Center on Urban and Metropolitan Policy, Paul A. Jargowsky presents findings that suggest that concentrated poverty declined significantly during the 1990s. Some of his findings include statistics...