Our cover story focuses on a very topical issue that challenges planners: hydraulic fracturing, more commonly known as -fracking. In “Local Land Use Planning Responses to -Hydraulic -Fracturing,” Carolyn G. Loh and Anna C. Osland examine what -local governments are doing to address the myriad problems that local fracking operations create. They survey 140 local government officials in shale gas drilling areas in four states—Colorado, -Louisiana, North Dakota, and Pennsylvania—to identify the most common -policies local governments use to address fracking, but find most communities haven't adopted many fracking regulations. Places that have -experienced a fracking-related accident, however, are more likely to adopt strict regulations. The researchers also find that state governments often deter or even actively prevent local governments from regulating fracking operations in their jurisdictions. The authors conclude, however, that most cities and counties have at least some legal room to restrict the most visible problems created by fracking under their normal planning authority. The authors also evaluate how the capacity of local governments affects efforts to control fracking: They find that higher-capacity communities are more likely to successfully regulate local -fracking. They suggest states should build local capacity to -address -fracking by increasing -technical assistance and training for city and county officials before they face a fracking-related industrial accident and have to respond quickly.
Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Lené Levy-Storms, Lin Chen, and Madeline Brozen remind us how important parks are for seniors, -particular those without other access to open and green spaces; they evaluate what low-income, inner-city older people living in Los Angeles seek in nearby parks. In “Parks for an Aging Population: Needs and -Preferences of Low-Income Seniors in Los Angeles,” the authors report on their focus groups with ethnically diverse seniors who were asked their preferences for programs and facilities in local parks and the -barriers they faced in using those parks. Seniors reported that local parks do not provide culturally appropriate programming that allows them to socialize safely and securely within the park and along the streets they use to travel to the park. The authors believe that park planners and designers must incorporate senior voices in park design and programming in four ways: developing programs that are sensitive to different and diverse cultural needs, creating ways to accommodate the desire for “seniors-only” parks, promoting security and safety in the park and along access routes, and offering open and green space.
Are farmers’ markets the answer to the food insecurity that plagues low-income, non-White communities? In “Do Farmers’ Markets Increase Access to Healthy Foods for All Communities? Comparing Markets in 24 Neighborhoods in Los Angeles,” the authors compare the fresh fruit and vegetable offerings at markets in ethnic and White neighborhoods with different average household incomes at two points in time. Bryce Lowery, David Sloane, Denise Payán, Jacqueline Illum, and Lavonna Lewis find that farmers’ markets in poorer minority -communities in Los Angeles are smaller and provide fewer fresh fruits and vegetables than markets in wealthy areas; in fact, the offerings at farmers’ markets in poorer communities were no better than those at convenience stores. Some of the managers of the 24 farmers’ markets -revealed that their first priority is to stock fresh produce, but it is -difficult to deal directly with farmers; moreover, many factors outside the managers’ control influence the selections of fresh fruits and -vegetables that markets offer. The authors conclude that planners cannot count on farmers’ markets to fully remedy disparities seen in the availability of fresh vegetables and fruits, while recognizing that these markets may have indirect nutritional impacts and increase community social capital by providing important places for meetings, new or renewed contact with cultural roots through food, and access to a variety of social and human service agencies that staff these markets. It is clear that planners have an important role to play in addressing poor nutritional outcomes in disadvantaged communities by working with a variety of agencies and stakeholders to conduct community food assessments on which they can help build important coalitions that will work to improve access to fresh fruits and vegetables in diverse communities.
In this issue of JAPA we inaugurate a new series of Review Essays, articles that summarize what planners know about an important issue and—just as important—what they don't know or argue about or are in conflict over, and what we need to do to fill in the blanks or end the debates. Deirdre Pfeiffer and Scott Cloutier describe what the literature says about happiness: what kinds of communities make people happy and the relationship between key aspects of the built environment and happiness. In “Planning for Happy Neighborhoods,” the authors report that residents who have access to open, natural, and green space may be happier, as are those that live in communities that allow them to interact with others safely. The authors suggest that planners should ensure that happiness-related indicators become part of health impact assessments; they describe a participatory neighborhood planning process, the Sustainability Through Happiness Framework, that might help planners ensure happiness is an explicit goal in all planning efforts.
In the latest entry in the Perspective series, Richard S. Bolan looks back over a career spanning six decades in which he taught, conducted research, and practiced in the United States and abroad. In “My 60 Years as a Planner,” the author talks about four different phases of his career: He began as a practitioner and spent time at the Joint Center for Urban Studies at MIT and Harvard before moving on to Boston College, and ultimately moving to the Humphrey Institute at the University of Minnesota. Each move brought a different emphasis to his research and practice; at the University of Minnesota, he began intensive international engagement that led him to write about the failed role of planning in the fall of communism. Dr. Bolan retired officially in 1999, but he has continued to teach planning theory and to think and write.