Booked on Planning

A road that was never built still managed to hollow out a neighborhood. We sit down with historian Emily Lieb to unpack how Baltimore’s “Road to Nowhere” took shape on paper, and why that was enough to destabilize Rosemont—a Black middle-class community of sturdy daylight rowhouses—through years of uncertainty, disinvestment, and policy misfires.

This conversation isn’t just about Baltimore. It’s about how plans, incentives, and vague labels shape markets and lives long before construction begins. We dig into the human toll of being told you’re “elected to be the sacrificers,” the choice to protect a cemetery over living homeowners, and the core question planners must face: is a city a place to live or a corridor to drive through? If we want the former, we have to align dollars, definitions, and decisions with the people already there.

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Show Notes:
Author Recommended Reads: Crime novels are a good way to understand cities (ex: Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead, The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler, The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett)
Colossus of New York by Colson Whitehead

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To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
Marvin Planning Consultants
Serving the planning needs of communities and counties in Nebraska and throughout the Midwest.

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Streets can be good friends or quiet bullies. We talk with author and planner Bruce Appleyard about Livable Streets 2.0 and how design choices—lane widths, speeds, buffers, sidewalks, and bike protection—shape safety, community bonds, and the energy we feel the moment our feet touch the curb. Bruce shares the personal story behind the book’s legacy and why traffic’s “invisible harms” still fracture neighborhoods, then maps a clear path to build streets that give back.

We dig into cognitive mapping and what children’s drawings reveal about freedom, learning, and place. When kids can walk and bike, their mental maps grow richer, their confidence rises, and schools benefit from more alert, active students. Bruce connects these human-scale wins to economic outcomes, explaining how the “street slum” effect drains main streets and how people-first redesigns boost sales and foot traffic. Slower is safer—and also better for business.

Enjoy the stories, borrow the tactics, and help your city trade throughput for life. If this resonated, follow the show, leave a review, and share it with a friend who’s ready to rethink their block.
Show Notes:
Author Recommended Reading: Fighting Traffic: The Dawn of the Motor Age in the American City by Peter Norton
The U.S. Traffic Calming Manual by Reid Ewing
Anything written by Dan Burton 
Walkable City Rules by Jeff Speck
Right of Way:Race, Class, and the Silent Epidemic of Pedestrian Deaths in America by Angie Schmidt
Arrested Mobility: Overcoming the Threat to Black Movement by Charles T. Brown
Great Streets by Allan Jacobs
Killed by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall
Confessions of a Recovering Engineer: Transportation for a Strong Town by Chuck Marohn
Streets and the Shaping of Towns and cities by Michael southworth and Eran Ben Joseph
End of the Road: Reimagining the Street as the Heart of the City by Billy Riggs
Life After Cars By Sarah Goodyear and Doug Gordon

Bruce’s website which features more information on the topic: https://rethinkingstreets.com/
To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Bookshop page at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning or get a copy through your local bookstore!
To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
RDG Planning & Design
Architects, landscape architects, engineers, artists & planners with a drive to make a difference.

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What if city design could prevent harm before it happens—and even lift our sense of purpose? We sat down with architect and planner Phillip Tabb to explore spiritual wellness as a practical, universal lens for shaping healthier streets, homes, and public spaces. Phill draws a clear line between spirituality and religion to focus on experiences we all share: safety, serenity, awe, belonging, and meaning. We unpack the wellness pillars—physical, mental, emotional, social, environmental, spiritual, and financial—and why social connection may be the strongest longevity factor. That insight reframes planning choices: front porches close to sidewalks, paths that prioritize pedestrians, and public squares that can hold both quiet lunches and electric festivals. Housing rounds out the conversation with a hard truth: bigger isn’t better if it separates us and prices out workers. If design is preventative care, then spiritually healthy places are ones that help us breathe, connect, and find purpose every day.

Enjoyed the conversation? Subscribe, rate, and share the show—and tell us what design move would bring more serenity or awe to your neighborhood.
Show Notes:
Further Reading: The Findhorn Garden: Pioneering a New Vision of Man and Nature in Cooperation by The Finhorn Community
Journal of Biophilic Design by Vanessa Champion 
Nature and the Cities by Fritz Steiner
Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs

To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Bookshop page at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning or get a copy through your local bookstore!
To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
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Climate action isn’t only written in federal legislation or international agreements. It’s shaped block by block through local land use law—where homes are built, how streets connect, what landscapes we preserve, and which energy systems we permit. In this episode, we chatted with Professor John Nolan to unpack the “land use wedge,” a practical way cities can influence up to 75 percent of CO2 emissions through buildings, transportation, sequestration, distributed energy, and renewables. Along the way, we trace how zoning leapfrogged planning a century ago, why that history still shapes our neighborhoods, and how a course correction can deliver compact, walkable, climate resilient places.

Professor Nolan shares case studies, court-tested approaches, and leadership insights from training thousands of local officials. We talk specific tools—clustering and infill, adaptive reuse, green roofs and tree canopies, solar-ready codes, and transit-supportive density—that reduce emissions and protect public health. We close with a look at a student-led workshop and a model framework for climate resilient development designed to help planners, attorneys, and elected leaders move from plan to ordinance to impact.
Show Notes:
Further Reading: Zoning the American Dream: Promises Still to Keep by Charles Haar and Jerold Kayden
Land Use in American by Henry Diamond, Patrick Noonan, and Laurance Rockefeller
The American City: What Works, What Doesn’t by Alexander Garden

Death of Dillon’s Rule article: https://digitalcommons.pace.edu/lawfaculty/1208/
Climate Resilient Development Workshop: https://www.pace.edu/law/centers-and-institutes/land-use-law-center/publications-and-resources/climate-resilient
To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Bookshop page at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning or get a copy through your local bookstore!
To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
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Forget the shiny renderings—our path to climate-ready cities starts with what already stands. We talked with architect and preservationist Carl Elefante, author of Going for Zero: Decarbonizing the Built Environment on the Path to Our Urban Future, to explore how City 3.0 can emerge by reusing buildings, redesigning streets, and resetting our standards of care. Carl breaks down Modern City 1.0 and 2.0, then lays out a hopeful, practical framework for what comes next: reconnecting with community, earth, and place while cutting carbon fast.
From Yemen’s wind-wise streets to a D.C. school’s revived induction system, the examples are concrete and transferable. We examine whole-life carbon accounting and why London’s reuse-first policy is a pivotal shift, forcing teams to compare demolition against reuse and reuse-plus-addition. The conversation contrasts durable, maintainable assemblies with fragile, all-glass facades—and explains why the greenest building is usually the one we already have.
If you care about sustainable architecture, urban design, adaptive reuse, missing-middle housing, passive strategies, and whole-life carbon, this conversation offers a clear map forward. Enjoy it, share it with a colleague, and tell us what your city should do next. Subscribe, leave a review, and pass this along to someone shaping the built environment today.
Show Notes:
Further Reading: If the past teaches what does the future learn? Ancient Urban Regions and the Durable Future by John Murphy
Architecture From Prehistory to Climate Emergency by Barnabus Calder
Main Street: How a City’s Heart Connects Us All by Mindy Thopsom Fullilove
Triumph of the City by Ed Glaeser 
Sustainable Nation: Urban Design Patterns for the Future by Doug Farr

To help support the show, pick up a copy of the book through our Bookshop page at https://bookshop.org/shop/bookedonplanning or get a copy through your local bookstore!
To view the show transcripts, click on the episode at https://bookedonplanning.buzzsprout.com/
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