Media Mentions

An article on PhysOrg reports Samina Raja, professor of urban and regional planning in the UB School of Architecture and Planning, is co-editor of a special issue of the Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems and Community Development that focuses on food systems planning efforts. "Engagement in food systems planning is no longer a new concern for local governments," the co-editors wrote in their accompanying editorial. "Local governments across North America have developed, enacted and, indeed, implemented policies that are ostensibly designed to strengthen food systems."

An article on the front page of Sunday’s City & Region section about a consultant’s report about where to locate a new Buffalo convention center interviews Bradshaw Hovey, research associate professor in the UB School of Architecture and Planning. “It really is a difficult thing to insert into the fabric of a city just because the footprint of a convention center is so large," he said.

A story on Spectrum News interviews Robert Shibley, dean of the UB School of Architecture and Planning, about Buffalo’s legendary architecture, which is featured in a 15-minute short documentary, “See It Through Buffalo,” that is being shown in Venice, Italy, at the Time, Space and Existence Exhibit. The article notes that the film highlights Buffalo as a city-wide classroom for UB architectural students. "We live in a city of really good bones. Bones given to us by Frederick Law Olmsted. Bones given to us by Joseph Ellicott when he gave us the radial street plan,” he said, adding that the school is building on the momentum from the international exposure and plan to release a book about the school’s partnership with the city.

An article in Popular Science about climate change and the dangers posed by the rise in extreme precipitation events that experts predict will only get worse interviews Nicholas Rajkovich, assistant professor of architecture, who discussed a storm that rolled through Buffalo on Aug. 8, dropping 1.5 inches of rain in just 30 minutes. The event fell somewhere between a 25-year and 50-year precipitation event, he said, meaning that the likelihood of rainfall like what he experienced occurring in 24-hour period in any given year was between roughly 2 and 4 percent. “There’s a lot of negative consequences to heavy, heavy rainfall,” Rajkovich said. “If it was more rainfall spread out evenly over the course of the year, that might not be so bad. But that’s not what we’re seeing.”

A story on WIVB-TV reports on a short documentary directed by Gregory Delaney, clinical assistant professor of architecture, that showcases Buffalo’s architecture and is now being shown in Venice, Italy, and looks at how the UB School of Architecture and Planning has been shaped by the city it resides in. "What we're doing is taking Buffalo to Venice, and inviting people to experience the city, and begin to understand a bit of the complexity of Buffalo," he said. "One woman I recall, she actually stayed in the room 45 minutes, watched it three times all the way through, and knew nothing about Buffalo and was really just taken with the images of the city and had an interest in the sites captured. It's been a really rewarding experience."

An article on Architect News reports on a new documentary at the Venice Architecture Biennale that showcases how students in the UB School of Architecture and Planning are learning from and rebuilding the City of Buffalo. The article notes that UB students and faculty are becoming an integral part of Buffalo’s renaissance, whether working with local refugee entrepreneurs or revitalizing local fabrication and industry, with students using the city itself as a laboratory, deeply embedding themselves in the community and the challenges it faces. The article includes a short video that was shown at the exhibition. The article also appeared on SeriouslyArchitecture.com. 

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.”