Latest News

An article in Business First about funding to expand access and improve parks and trails throughout metropolitan Buffalo reports the UB Regional Institute has launched Imagine LaSalle and interviews Robert Shibley, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning, who said the focus is on public engagement around what currently exists in LaSalle Park, and what it could and should be. “We’re talking to folks that are in touch with the park in a pretty direct way, so there’s this broad cross-section of folks,” he said. “This is an opportunity to take that conversation with the same people who are heavy park users into another level of aspiration. Part of our goal here is to inspire people about the possibilities of this park.” The article also quotes Laura Quebral, director of the UBRI.

An article in The Washington Times about the growing number of small towns that are attracting workers in the STEM fields because of the resources and amenities they offer interviews Robert Shibley, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning, who said that Buffalo’s revitalization efforts have largely succeeded because city planners capitalized on Buffalo’s comparative advantages, the same way small cities have outpaced Silicon Valley in technology. “There’s no question that if the businesses you’re trying to attract are STEM-based, and you have a college and university configuration that’s delivering STEM students to the marketplace, you have an advantage if you get your business closer to that labor force,” he said.

An article in The Conversation about dealing with the oppressive heat that has plagued much of North America since the end of June suggests that cities need to do more to mitigate the effects of heat waves, and reports Nick Rajkovich, assistant professor of architecture in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, has worked with planners around Cleveland to understand how they prepare for hot weather. “In Cleveland, preparing for extreme heat events has brought professionals together and encouraged overlapping approaches because no single strategy is foolproof,” he said, adding officials “should pursue multiple solutions rather than looking for one ‘best’ option.” The article appeared in news outlets around the country, including the San Francisco Chronicle, WTOP in Washington, D.C., Houston Chronicle and Seattle Post-Intelligencer.

An article in U.S. News & World Report about plans by government officials in Estonia to roll out free public transportation nationwide, which, if successful, would make the Baltic state the first country to implement such a system, interviews Daniel Hess, professor of urban and regional planning in the UB School of Architecture and Planning. “As we continue to urbanize and have denser places that need many people reaching them, there will be an increasing need for public transit to serve these places with high-capacity transit vehicles, such as buses, streetcars or subways," he said. "Any growing city where there's a premium on land value and the traffic is choking, and where it’s very expensive to travel by car and park, seems a possibility for free public transport.”

An article on Fast Company’s Co.Design about Ford Motor Co.’s plan to remake Detroit – and itself – interviews Robert Silverman, professor of urban and regional planning in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, who said there has always been a concern that a flood of money will lead to swift gentrification. “The area has been teetering between revitalizing and falling by the wayside for years,” he says. “There are definitely places that will develop slower around the old station, so there’s probably still space for things like affordable housing and business development that smaller mom-and-pop and local businesses can be involved in.”

A story on KCET-TV in Los Angeles about designing cities that allow birds and other wildlife to safely coexist with humans interviews Joyce Hwang, associate professor of architecture in the School of Architecture and Planning, about her work, which includes a bat tower that provides a livable habitat in an aesthetically striking form that creates public awareness, and her Generative Zoning project that looks to the unused and abandoned urban spots created by zoning regulations. Perhaps, she said, the fact that the U.S. is already considering bird-safe buildings to minimize the No. 1 cause of death for urban birds, flying into windows, means that we are moving forward.