Round Up: Tinder for City Planning, Small Town Mixed Use Funding, Dimensions of a Perfect Block, The Weed Dilemma

Tinder for cities: how tech is making urban planning more inclusive

The city of Santa Monica, California is trialing new technology aimed at making urban planning more transparent and interactive. Their goal is to innovate the public input process and cut down on bureaucracy.

Funding Small Town Main Street Mixed Use
Influenced by Regional Plan Association’s report, The Unintended Consequences of Housing Finance, the Federal government may alter its financing policies to allow growth of mixed use developments in medium and small town main streets.

Defining the Perfect Block Length for Walkability
A Harvard team took to defining the "perfect" city block dimensions and noted that the New York City grid is near ideal. Too big and too small are both detrimental, so the Goldilocks principle seems to apply.

The Weed Dilemma

If you are in one of the states on the increasing list of states to legalize marijuana - for medical or recreational use - you have to ask yourselves, how will this change the look of commercial corridors?