Halloween Costumes for Urban Planners

For the past three years, Nate Berg at Planetizen has created lists of the best urban planning costume ideas.

This year’s standouts include:

• Pocket Park : Show your friends how to take advantage of underused urban spaces with this pocket park costume. Simply take a pair of pants, turn the pockets inside out and draw a little park. Pull those pockets out on Halloween and plant that seed.

• Personal Rapid Transit : Think pods are the future of public transit? Help convince your friends by dressing up as your own automated podcar. Dress all in white, top yourself off with a motorcycle helmet and you’re on a path to the future of transit.

• Roundabout: Cut out a large cardboard circle to go around your middle.  Adhere fake (or real, depending on availability and your own ambition) flowers and plants to your torso and head.  I guarantee you SOMEBODY who gets and appreciates the costume (most likely a fellow planner-nerd) will have fun running circles around you at some point.

Here is a picture from 2009′s list

And a few ideas from 2008:

• Bike Lane: Here’s an easy one. Just get some black clothes and some white tape. Make two strong lines from each foot to each shoulder and tape out a simple bike on your torso in between. Fashionable and bikeable.

• New Urbanism: Go all-pastel. Invite someone to sit on your lap –er, front porch.

• Sprawl: This costume is more of a role-playing challenge. Try to take up as much room as possible. Drink a lot of water. Bring two cars. And wherever you go, make sure it’s at least 20 miles away.

Related posts:

1. Urban Connectivity Leads to Urban Vitality
2. Urban Breakfast – December 12
3. Friday 5: Urban Miscellany from Sept 18th-24th
4. Urban Savoir-Faire
5. Creating Community in the Urban Desert