PDI provides a variety of resources on leadership, diversity, and other issues in urban planning and public affairs. This site contains downloadable articles, links to publications, and archived webinars.

To find a resource, please use the search form below.

Here are some recent additions to PDI Resources:

Event/Program: PDI/NHI Learning Lab: Newark's Revitalization Paradox
Speaker: Julia Rabig, Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester.
Location: Online
Price: Free
About: In Cory Booker, Newark has a mayor with a connection to the low-income communities of New Jersey's largest city. But community development leaders there are uneasy. Learn why as Julia Rabig discusses her article, "What's the Matter with Newark," from the Fall 2008 issue of Shelterforce: The Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Building. Rabig will also explore the rich culture and history of community development in Newark. Rabig teaches at the Frederick Douglass Institute for African and African-American Studies at the University of Rochester. Her doctoral dissertation explores the history of community economic development in Newark since the 1950s. This presentation is based on Dr. Rabig's article "What's the Matter with Newark?" in the Fall 2008 edition of Shelterforce: The Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Building. PDI/NHI Learning Labs are produced in partnership with the National Housing Institute.

Event/Program: PDI/NHI Learning Lab: Policy Agenda -- Fair Housing
Speaker: Gregory P. Squires, Professor of Sociology, and Public Policy and Public Administration, The George Washington University
Location: Online
Price: Free
About: In Fall 2008, before the presidential election, Gregory Squires discusses what he sees are the most critical issues for fair housing that should be addressed by the incoming presidential administration. His presentation is based on his article, "A Fair Housing Agenda for 2008 and Beyond," in the Fall 2008 issue of Shelterforce: The Journal of Affordable Housing and Community Building. This Learning Lab was produced in collaboration with the National Housing Institute.

Gregory Squires is a nationally-known expert on housing and community development. He has written several articles and books on the subject, including Insurance Redlining , Color and Money, Urban Sprawl, Organizing Access to Capital, Why the Poor Pay More: How to Stop Predatory Lending, and Privileged Places: Race, Residence and the Structure of Opportunity. He chairs the Sociology department at The George Washington University and

Event/Program: The Leading Institute Learning Lab: What Frederick Law Olmsted, Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs Can Teach Planners About Leadership
Speaker: Leonardo Vazquez, Director, The Leading Institute and Director, Professional Development Institute, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Location: Online
Price: Free
About: Before they became among the most influential figures in the history of urban planning -- Frederick Law Olmsted, Robert Moses and Jane Jacobs - had no formal training in architecture, engineering or urban planning. How were they able to achieve what so many smart, technically sound planners could not? Learn how their leadership skills made them successful city planners and builders.

Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP, is a co-founder and the director of The Leading Institute, which provides
innovative and cost-effective leadership development for professionals in planning and public affairs. He is the author of
Leading from the Middle and has written on leadership for Shelterforce and Planetizen.

Event: PDI Learning Lab: The Buffalo Commons and Soft-Edged Planning
Speaker: Frank Popper, Professor, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey
Location: Online.
Price: Free
About: Twenty years ago Deborah and Frank Popper proposed that large areas of the rural Great Plains become an environmentally oriented preserve they called the Buffalo Commons. Despite vast initial hostility and skepticism from many Plains residents, the Buffalo Commons is in fact forming today, and some Plains politicians are coming to support it. The Poppers will discuss their Plains experience and what it suggests about the possibilities for other regions, urban and rural, and for planning by means of metaphors--what they call soft-edged planning.

Frank Popper teaches in the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University and in the Environmental Studies Program at Princeton University. He chairs the Great Plains Restoration Council.

Dr. Popper suggests that you might find the presentation richer and more informative if you read the following articles before the presentation:
"Life on the Great Plains anything but plain, simple," USA Today
"The idea of a Buffalo Commons slowly but surely becoming a reality on the Great Plains," High Plains/Midwest Ag Journal
"The Buffalo Commons: Its Antecedents and Implications," Online Journal of Rural Research and Policy
"The Onset of the Buffalo Commons," Journal of the West

Event/Program: PDI Learning Lab: The Zoning Hearing Examiner Examined
Speakers: Stuart Meck, Director, Center for Government Services, Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers The State University of New Jersey and Michele Lefaivre, Ph.D., Esq., Zoning Hearing Examiner for Havre de Grace and Howard County, Maryland
Location: Click here to view/hear event
Price: Free
About: Zoning hearing examiners (or zoning administrators, as they are sometimes known) are an alternative to the tradition of using citizen boards to make decisions on development applications. Stuart Meck, and Michele Lefaivre, Esq. will discuss the origins and the growing use of zoning hearing examiners in the United States. Meck has done extensive research in this subject.

Event: PDI Learning Lab: Engaging the Future: Forecasts, Scenarios, Plans, and Projects
Location: Click here to view/hear the event
Speakers: Lew Hopkins, Professor Emeritus, University of Illnois Urbana-Champaign and Marisa Zapata, PhD. candidate, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
Price: Free
About: How can we use forecasts, scenarios, plans, and projects to engage the future? Rather than focus on how to make a forecast, create a scenario, devise a plan, or manage a project, this book focuses on how to use these tools in continuing deliberations about what to do. We will briefly make three points. Scenarios should be used in sets to help us keep in mind multiple futures that may occur based on what we do and what we cannot control. Identifying scenarios with different voices, what we call person-oriented narratives, helps to recognize that there are different voices and different interests when engaging the future. Plans should be alive, presented in a form that provides information about policies or relationships among actions that should be considered when deliberating about what to do.

Event: PDI Learning Lab: "Being the Black Guy": Reflections on Being a Planner of Color in the Consulting Field
Speaker: Mitchell Silver, PP,AICP, Director, Department of City Planning and Raleigh Urban Design Center, Raleigh, NC
Location: Click here to view/hear event
Price: Free
About: Before he was Raleigh's Director of City Planning, Mitchell Silver was a planning consultant in the New York City area. He will reflect on his experiences as one of the few senior-level planners of color in the private sector and on cultural practices within the industry.

Event: PDI Learning Lab: Thrills, Chills and Spills of Recovery Planning in New Orleans' Ninth Ward
Speaker: Kenneth Reardon, Associate Professor, Cornell University Department of City and Regional Planning
Location: Click here to view/hear the event
Price: Free
About: Cornell University planning professor Kenneth Reardon, a living legend in collaborative community planning, will discuss the issues, opportunities, challenges and successes of his work to revitalize New Orleans Ninth Ward. The Ninth Ward is a low-income community that was among the hardest hit by Hurricane Katrina.

Event: PDI Learning Lab: Smart growth? How about 'smart decline'?
Speaker: Justin Hollander, Assistant Professor, Tufts University
Location: Click here to enter the Learning Lab
Price: Free
About: In the U.S. and around the world, there is an urgent need to plan for cities experiencing persistent population decline. Over the last fifty years, 370 cities worldwide have shrunk by at least 10%. As a citys population declines, the poor and disenfranchised tend to be left behind in an increasingly unsafe and inhospitable environment of abandonment and neglect. A shrinking city does not have to be a desolate place, but if we continue to plan for growth instead of acknowledging the reality of decline, planning efforts may be fruitless. In this presentation, Professor Hollander reviews some of the recent work going on to promote this new planning paradigm "smart decline."

Event: PDI Learning Lab: Making neighborhoods safer through urban design
Speaker: Leland Edgecombe, AIA, ASLA, AICP, President, The Edgecombe Group
Location: Click here to enter the Learning Lab (please note: this recording begins at the end of the "upcoming events" portion of the program)
Price: Free
About: How does the design of a community make a place safer -- or more dangerous? Lee Edgecombe, an expert and practitioner in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design and other urban design matters, will explore these issues.

Event: How Bad Leadership Spoils Good Planning
Location: Click here to view the recording
Price: Free
About: PDI Director Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP, will discuss leadership styles that promote, or hamper, high quality planning practice. This Learning Lab will be based on Vazquez' op-ed in Planetizen, "How Bad Leadership Spoils Good Planning."

Event: The Metrics of Cultural Development Planning
Location: Click here to view the recording
Price: Free
About: Louise Stevens, nationally-known expert in arts-based planning and economic development, will discuss innovative techniques for measuring the effectiveness of cultural development in urban planning. Louise teaches courses in arts-based economic development and cultural development in the Bloustein Online Continuing Education Program.

Event: Latinos and Planning: The Road Ahead
Location: Click here to view the recording
Price: Free
About: PDI Director Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP, will discuss key planning challenges facing Latino communities in the United States. This Learning Lab will be based on Vazquez' op-ed in Planetizen, "Latinos and Planning: The Road Ahead." Vazquez chairs the Latinos and Planning Division of the American Planning Association

Event: Building Professional Networks -- Tips for Those Who Hate Networking
Location: Click here to view the recording
Price: Free
About: Would you like to be better at networking and building professional relationships? PDI Director Leonardo Vazquez, AICP/PP will offer tips and techniques that work for practically anyone. The tips can also help planning professionals build the professional relationships that help them to build consensus and get more resources for their projects.