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Podcast episode 146: All Around the World - USA

Podcast episode 146 is available now via this link or from iTunes and Spotify.

This is the first of a new series being led by the oldest friend of the podcast, Mr Paul Smith. Paul, regular listeners to the podcast will know, is the Managing Director at the Strategic Land Group and a Housing Today columnist.

Paul put it to me a little while ago that debates about the planning system in England tend, for the most part, to focus solely on the planning system in England, which is right isn’t it? We obsess about whether it is or is not moving towards or further away from whatever it looked like in whenever the good old days were. We very seldom look to other countries for inspiration and ideas.

Paul wanted to remedy that and so in this series he is going to chat with planning professionals and academics from a number of countries to find out what works well there, what works less well, and what can we learn.

First up. The USA.

You will hear in the episode a conversation that Paul recorded online with Emily Hamilton, who is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Urbanity Project at the Mercatus Center, which is part of George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia.

They talk amongst other things about the role of federal government, “comprehensive plans” and whether there is a link between more liberal zoning arrangements and housing affordability.



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