Welcome to the 31st edition of Panorama! Panorama is a curation of work from students of the Department of City and Regional Planning at the University of Pennsylvania’s Weitzman School of Design.
As planners, preservationists, designers, and urbanists, we strike a balance between remembering the past and preparing for the future. This edition of Panorama encompasses time and scales—from intimate stories to global policy recommendations. Through writing, cartography, and photography, students explore topics such as green finance, the future of mobility, affordable housing policy, restroom access, creative economies, and much, much more.
Panorama 2023 also features work from the Weitzman School’s Fall ’22 semester, including urban design for climate resiliency in St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands; a reimagination of the DC-295 highway in Washington, D.C; data visualization and historical research exploring Boston’s mobility future; and, in a joint studio with the Department of Landscape Architecture, strategies to foster transnational solidarity, ecological renewal, and economic prosperity at the border of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
This magazine seeks to create discussions at the intersections of challenges that all of us, planners or not, witness in our everyday lives, be it rising temperatures, increasing housing costs, a lack of viable mass transit, or poorly organized settlements. The future of planning rests on our collective ability for thought, dialogue, and action. We have thoroughly enjoyed bringing together this edition of Panorama and we hope that when you turn the last page, you feel challenged, informed, and hopeful for our future.
With hope, and in solidarity,
Panorama Editorial Staff