Et Cetera

Podcasts: Planners Playlist

Excavating Atlanta digs into the structural inequality of Georgia's capital — what made it, what it makes, and how it can be unmade. Presented by the Center for Civil and Human Rights, each episode focuses on one part of the problem, from housing to health inequities, with subject matter experts leading the way.

Curious City from WBEZ is a listener-generated audio series about what makes Chicago tick. Recent episodes have looked into Chicago's Air and Water Show, the life of a train operator, and the city's coyote population (for more on that, read Planning's Ever Green column from August/September 2017: www.planning.org/planning/2017/aug/evergreen). Go to curiouscity.wbez.org to help pick an upcoming topic.

The Black Urbanist Radio Show hits on urban design, transportation, and people and places from the African diaspora, presented alongside recommended reading and blog posts at theblackurbanist.com. Host Kristen Jeffers also teams up with Katrina Johnston-Zimmerman on the podcast Third Wave Urbanism, which takes an intersectional look at 21st-century cities.

The Intersection is aptly named: Each season, the podcast installs itself at a cross street in the Bay Area to tell a bigger story about how those neighborhoods are changing — or how they need to be changed. Listeners can vote on the next intersection to be investigated at theintersection.fm/poll.

What have you been listening to?

Share your podcast picks! Email Lindsay R. Nieman, Planning's assistant editor, at lnieman@planning.org.

Now Streaming: Braddock, PA

Photo courtesy Braddock, PA.

A new four-part docuseries from Topic looks at the inequities inherent in health and recovery in Pennsylvania steel country. Located just a 15-minute drive from Pittsburgh, Braddock has less than 2,000 people — and dozens of fossil-fuel plants. That makes for some of the most polluted air and highest cancer rates in the U.S. And with more than 30 percent of the population comprised of people of color and over 20 percent living under the poverty line, the city doubly qualifies as an environmental-justice area, according to the state's definition.

Braddock, PA opens with the city's past — a seemingly endless pan of a crowded cemetery, greenery tinted a striking red by the filmmakers — then finds its future in the people who refuse to leave: the descendants of steelworkers, an urban farmer, and a House of Representatives candidate, all working to heal their home. Watch the series for free at topic.com/braddock-pa.

Toolkit: Writing About Trans People

Photo courtesy Alex Kapitan.

The Radical Copyeditor offers a comprehensive handbook for using language inclusive of all genders, including a recent update that helps identify and avoid language that invalidates identities. At radicalcopyeditor.com, author Alex Kapitan also offers fact sheets, consulting and writing services, and an "Ask a Radical Copyeditor" column. Access The Radical Copyeditor's Style Guide for Writing About Transgender People at https://bit.ly/2iLgGOl.

Mapped: American Land Use

Bloomberg released a new storymap that measures how land use translates into wealth creation in the U.S. Using surveys, satellite images, and government data, the U.S. Department of Agriculture sorted the contiguous 48 states into 250,000-acre segments and six major land-use types. The findings? While a fifth of the country is dedicated to agriculture, 80 percent of the population is housed in the four percent of land dedicated to cities — which also make up the bulk of America's GDP. To learn more, including how much room golf courses and wildfires consume, go to bloomberg.com/graphics/2018-us-land-use.

Et Cetera is a curated collection of planning odds and ends. Please send information to Lindsay R. Nieman, Planning's assistant editor, at lnieman@planning.org.