Land Use

Jeremy Rosenberg examines why Thomas Jefferson may have had more of an impact on the development of Los Angeles than you might suspect. The city's street grid can be traced back to this American founding father.

July 13, 2012 - KCET

Only a decade after the last family farm in the city closed, commercial agriculture is mining "the last slice of untapped real estate in the city" to reap a bounty of benefits - from locally grown basil and bok choy to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

July 13, 2012 - The New York Times

As airlines cut service to small and mid-sized cities, once bustling airports now find whole terminals vacated, and are looking to find new revenue models for the vacated space, reports Jane L. Levere.

July 12, 2012 - The New York Times

Turning its attention from trimming waistlines to expanding skylines, Matt Chaban delivers the details on the Bloomberg administration's proposed upzoning for the east side of Midtown Manhattan.

July 12, 2012 - The New York Observer

As plans progress in many large cities to cap their below-grade urban freeways, smaller cities, like Ventura, California, are looking to benefit from similar proposals.

July 12, 2012 - Ventura County Star

Steve Whitman, AICP, and Sharon Ferguson discuss what planners need to know about Permaculture, a holistic, integrated system analysis and design tool that very few planners are using.

July 11, 2012 - Practicing Planner

Lloyd Alter investigates the individuals and organizations "manufacturing" the anti-Agenda 21 campaign, and argues that "Big Oil" is helping to bankroll anti-sustainability efforts.

July 10, 2012 - Treehugger

A new park and plans for increased waterfront access seek to reintroduce Newark's residents, and even tourists, to the Passaic River, the longtime industrial dumping ground that flows through the city, writes Sharon Adarlo.

July 10, 2012 - The Wall Street Journal

Pedestrian malls have had a very mixed success ever since Victor Gruen debuted them back in the 1960s. Scott Doyon says the problem is that going pedestrian-only is the flipside of being autocentric.

July 9, 2012 - PlaceShakers

New Orleans has only one supermarket for every 350,000 residents, and they are often in locations that are more than a mile from where low-income residents live, writes Rosa Ramirez.

July 8, 2012 - NEWS21

What exactly is defined by mixed-use is often somewhat up to debate. Howard Blackson of Better Cities & Towns helps us clarify what the term "mixed-use" should really mean.

July 6, 2012 - Better Cities & Towns

A common criticism of streetcars are their relative slow speed combined with high capital and operating costs. Still, streetcars are being constructed in both large in small cities to help incentivize development.

July 6, 2012 - The Naked City

Matt Bevilacqua talks shop with Emily Talen, whose new book explores the way land use regulation has shaped American cities and how it's all about to change.

July 5, 2012 - Next American City

Brian Phelps reports on the power of urban landscaping to revitalize a flood-devastated city - Valencia, Spain.

July 4, 2012 - Metropolis

Tehran is known for being congested and polluted, but Elyana Javaheri credits mayor Mohammad-Bagher Ghalibaf for making the Iranian capital more livable.

July 4, 2012 - This Big City

In McAllen, Texas, WalMart Stores Inc. abandoned one of their big box stores. Rather than let it collect dust, the city transformed it into the U.S.'s largest public library.

July 2, 2012 - Grist

The City of Pittsburgh, PA has announced an "urban forest master plan" to add more foliage to the 2.5 million trees already covering the city.

July 1, 2012 - The Pittsburg Post-Gazette

James Trainor looks back at the history of New York's "adventure playgrounds" of the 1960s and 70s, tracing their origin back to the original Central Park dust-up between Robert Moses and local housewives.

June 30, 2012 - CABINET

As the global recession continues to hit the global economy, shopping centers take on two distinct development patterns in developed and developing nations.

June 28, 2012 - Retail Traffic

As new research data on cities pours in daily, interesting patterns emerge regarding income, green space and urban growth. Like people in their genetic make-up, are cities fundamentally all the same?

June 28, 2012 - The Economist