The Delaware Valley Regional Planning Commission (DVRPC) is conducting a public outreach survey to gather opinions on the vision for transportation and land use in the greater Philadelphia region. This is laying the groundwork for the update to the nine-county long-range plan. Please take a few minutes to fill out this short survey and give us your input at www.dvrpc.org/connections. By doing so you could be eligible to win an 8 GB iPod Touch. Survey ends March 7, 2008.

Thank you,

DVRPC Long Range Planning

The New York Times' Sewell Chan has a very good article about university expansion in New York City, and all of the benefits and pitfalls that town and gown relationships can entail in a big city trying to encourage big development.

I noticed a number of connections with our recent discussions about Penn Praxis and the role of city planning, and of course, the idea of creating a new university campus in the city of Philadelphia. Basically, universities can be tremendous engines of economic growth and cultural value, but (as with every enterprise) only if smart planning keeps their growth within a broader vision of city neighborhoods and development.

Judith Rodin, former president of Penn and now president of the Rockefeller Foundation, is quoted at length (making the article nearly as much about Philadelphia as it is about New York):