South Florida Planning Symposium

The Boca Raton Innovation Center (BRIC) is a great place to start this blog, because it's directly relevant to my neighborhood. I live across the street in the Centra complex. I picked this neighborhood largely for its walkability among other factors. My family and I walk to the shops along Yamato, including Palm Beach Bagel, with some regularity; I bike past BRIC on my way to the El Rio Trail and FAU; and sometimes we walk this area just for fun. So what happens at BRIC affects us directly.  Note that we never, ever walk along Yamato. Cars on Yamato are traveling at highway speeds, and so it's unpleasant even to walk on the sidewalk there. But there is a parallel street behind the shops where cars are traveling about 20 mph. It's on this internal street that we walk. And it's this kind of slow speed internal street that the complex needs much more of. Most people reflexively oppose development near them because of "traffic." Honestly, I am not sure if I beli...

 I have been a professional urban planner since 2003; I have taught various aspects of urban planning since 2013. The profession, on the whole, is highly analytical. We are trained to analyze data and make inferences and recommendations based on the analysis of objective data. We are also trained to engage the public to elicit their values and goals for their community. Subjective experience, generally, is not a priority. But one of the major goals of urban planning - quality of life - is notably difficult to measure and difficult to define. The academic literature has not arrived at a consensus about how to define or measure quality of life. Besides, surveys of the general public are notably difficult to pull off, with low response rates and quick participant burnout. Although I do think cities should regularly survey their citizenry about quality of life concerns, I think we need other ways of understanding quality of life. I am starting this blog to share my own personal and sub...