Rolf Pendall
@rpplan.bsky.social
I'm an urban planning educator at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. My questions/quests: Can zoning make communities equitable instead of protecting privilege? What narratives & political campaigns can lead to zoning for equity?
BPJ 1994--Nonpoint source pollution: Getting to the nonpoint. Do site-by-site approaches to stormwater kill urban density? @kateontransport.bsky.social your post also makes me happy because you were such a great Building Resilient Regions co-conspirator. Thanks for this legacy. 2/2
June 21, 2025 at 5:32 PM
BPJ 1994--Nonpoint source pollution: Getting to the nonpoint. Do site-by-site approaches to stormwater kill urban density? @kateontransport.bsky.social your post also makes me happy because you were such a great Building Resilient Regions co-conspirator. Thanks for this legacy. 2/2
This makes me happy on so many levels--my first 2 sole-authored articles were in BPJ. 1993: Clavel & Forester--shall ever the twain meet? Little did I know they were already mixing it up at Cornell, that I'd join them there 5 years later, and that you'd be my RA a few years after that. 1/
June 21, 2025 at 5:26 PM
This makes me happy on so many levels--my first 2 sole-authored articles were in BPJ. 1993: Clavel & Forester--shall ever the twain meet? Little did I know they were already mixing it up at Cornell, that I'd join them there 5 years later, and that you'd be my RA a few years after that. 1/
Next stop Phoenix. It’s a slippery slope…water flows uphill to money.
June 2, 2025 at 5:22 PM
Next stop Phoenix. It’s a slippery slope…water flows uphill to money.
2/2 In particular, LLMs tend to overgeneralize findings and implications in ways that the original authors tended to avoid, perhaps because they didn't have enough evidence to draw such conclusions.
May 30, 2025 at 7:28 PM
2/2 In particular, LLMs tend to overgeneralize findings and implications in ways that the original authors tended to avoid, perhaps because they didn't have enough evidence to draw such conclusions.
A little more precision and nuance would be nice to see. 2/2
May 28, 2025 at 5:55 PM
A little more precision and nuance would be nice to see. 2/2
Can you please expand on what you mean by “skepticism of private development”? Also, you go from “urban planning” (a set of practices) to “planners”—which planners do you mean? Where? Which sectors? Professional planners work on all sides of development. 1/2
May 28, 2025 at 5:37 PM
Can you please expand on what you mean by “skepticism of private development”? Also, you go from “urban planning” (a set of practices) to “planners”—which planners do you mean? Where? Which sectors? Professional planners work on all sides of development. 1/2
2/2 Small suburbs in TX have often incorporated to avoid high density housing. This bill could reinforce such fragmentation and exclusionary HOA formation.
May 27, 2025 at 11:30 AM
2/2 Small suburbs in TX have often incorporated to avoid high density housing. This bill could reinforce such fragmentation and exclusionary HOA formation.
Thanks for highlighting this bill. By my count, TX SB 15 will apply to about 16 cities total; it also applies only where HOAs don’t impose higher minimum lot sizes. In short, it could reinforce spatial inequality and/ or hasten gentrification.
May 27, 2025 at 11:26 AM
Thanks for highlighting this bill. By my count, TX SB 15 will apply to about 16 cities total; it also applies only where HOAs don’t impose higher minimum lot sizes. In short, it could reinforce spatial inequality and/ or hasten gentrification.
This atrocious trend in police killings is entirely driven by red states, as the chart shows. Police killings plateaued in blue states and then fell.
May 24, 2025 at 3:48 PM
This atrocious trend in police killings is entirely driven by red states, as the chart shows. Police killings plateaued in blue states and then fell.
5/5 How can we overcome the political unpopularity of broad-based taxes after 50+ years of concerted efforts to erode the sense that we're all in this together?
May 23, 2025 at 4:39 PM
5/5 How can we overcome the political unpopularity of broad-based taxes after 50+ years of concerted efforts to erode the sense that we're all in this together?
4/ At least since Prop 13, property taxes have been undermined by state & local backlash, but demand for local public goods has grown. People want stuff but they won't pay for it, but they don't want other people to get stuff they aren't paying for.
May 23, 2025 at 4:35 PM
4/ At least since Prop 13, property taxes have been undermined by state & local backlash, but demand for local public goods has grown. People want stuff but they won't pay for it, but they don't want other people to get stuff they aren't paying for.
3/ But local fiscal systems are path-dependent and overdetermined by higher-level laws & constitutions (state or national, depending on the country). Has local property-tax dependence strengthened anywhere? How has that occurred? @cbgoodman.co -- examples?
May 23, 2025 at 4:29 PM
3/ But local fiscal systems are path-dependent and overdetermined by higher-level laws & constitutions (state or national, depending on the country). Has local property-tax dependence strengthened anywhere? How has that occurred? @cbgoodman.co -- examples?
2/ "Many cities around the world can and should take more advantage of the broad-based land value capture mechanism already at its disposal, the property tax. Local efforts to raise revenue should focus on overcoming its political unpopularity instead of devising new more complicated programs."
May 23, 2025 at 4:23 PM
2/ "Many cities around the world can and should take more advantage of the broad-based land value capture mechanism already at its disposal, the property tax. Local efforts to raise revenue should focus on overcoming its political unpopularity instead of devising new more complicated programs."
Ageism leads many people to conclude that older drivers are inherently unsafe. This misconception needs to be corrected, and framing needs to shift. S. Rosenbloom has written extensively about this; also see a recent JPL review by Alex Li journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
May 12, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Ageism leads many people to conclude that older drivers are inherently unsafe. This misconception needs to be corrected, and framing needs to shift. S. Rosenbloom has written extensively about this; also see a recent JPL review by Alex Li journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1...
You might want to update this; your data are from 2013-14 I think. Crashes among young drivers are way too high, but they've come down significantly thanks in part to evidence-based policymaking. apnews.com/article/youn...
Report: Young driver fatality rates have fallen sharply in the US, helped by education, technology
A new report says that crash and fatality rates among drivers under 21 have fallen dramatically in the U.S. during the past 20 years but young drivers are still the riskiest group behind the wheel.
apnews.com
May 12, 2025 at 3:43 PM
You might want to update this; your data are from 2013-14 I think. Crashes among young drivers are way too high, but they've come down significantly thanks in part to evidence-based policymaking. apnews.com/article/youn...
Indirectly related to the article: Spoils system vs. civil service figured in the assassination of James Garfield. Check it out on Throughline (a consistently great NPR podcast): www.npr.org/2025/04/24/1...
The Deadly Story of the U.S. Civil Service : Throughline
When James Garfield won the Presidency in 1880, Charles Guiteau got ready to accept his new government job. No one had actually offered him a job – but he'd campaigned for Garfield, so he assumed he'd...
www.npr.org
May 7, 2025 at 2:03 PM
Indirectly related to the article: Spoils system vs. civil service figured in the assassination of James Garfield. Check it out on Throughline (a consistently great NPR podcast): www.npr.org/2025/04/24/1...
Amazing and sobering work. Congratulations.
May 5, 2025 at 7:50 PM
Amazing and sobering work. Congratulations.
Women leading the settlement house movement advocated for public toilets over 100 years ago. See Maureen Flanagan’s “Constructing the Patriarchal City” for examples of feminist urbanism of the early 1900s in London, Dublin, Toronto, & Chicago.
May 4, 2025 at 11:38 AM
Women leading the settlement house movement advocated for public toilets over 100 years ago. See Maureen Flanagan’s “Constructing the Patriarchal City” for examples of feminist urbanism of the early 1900s in London, Dublin, Toronto, & Chicago.
This is so wrong. I admire your restrained tone. Thank you for starting the work, and best wishes finding alternative funding sources.
April 3, 2025 at 9:25 PM
This is so wrong. I admire your restrained tone. Thank you for starting the work, and best wishes finding alternative funding sources.