Pietro's Urban Studies Pages

This page was originally built in the late 1990s. Since then I have: a) completed the 193-unit housing project; b) become involved in working with Afghan planners; c) begun the PhD program in City and Regional Planning at UC Berkeley. This means that I have not had time to manage this section of the website for almost a decade. What follows is a rudimentary update. (13 Feb 2009)

Study of the site-planning and origins of the Chaco Culture in what is now the American Southwest. This is a version of my Planning masters' thesis, posted in 1997.

In Praise of Density. This is an argument that needs to be made again and again in a society that advocates extremely low urban densities. Usually the argument is that we should not re-create the tenements of 19th-century New York (630 units to the acre); whereas most American cities have densities below 10 units to the acre. I advocate a range of 25 to 200 units to the acre, with a lot of attention to unique site features and alternations of built versus open space. The essay goes into more detail.

URBAN TOURS.
I have visited a lot of cities over the years. Here I post images and commentaries on only a few cities, to give some ideas to planners--especially Americans who are suspicious about higher-density settlements, and Afghans who are seeking comparative examples. San Francisco Venice, Italy Florence, Italy

Here I am posting most of the San Francisco Planning Code as it stood in mid-2007 as a reference for planners. I hope it can serve as a resource for other planners to understand how we can implement good urban planning under American style codes.