Buildings and homes built as a product of the Works Progress Administration of the 1930s are being torn down at a rate that some find unsettling.
"'It's ironic to be tearing them down just when America is going through tough times again,' said the biographer Robert Caro, who wrote about the WPA in 'The Power Broker,' his book about the builder Robert Moses. 'We should be preserving them and honoring them. They serve as monuments to the fact that it is possible to combine infrastructure with beauty.'"
"Professors, authors and architects have formed the National New Deal Preservation Association. State governments from Arkansas to California are compiling lists of WPA-era projects still standing.
'They are redolent of a moment when there was more emphasis on making an integrated community - not just building houses, but auditoriums, community centers and schools,' said the architect Hugh Hardy, who restored Radio City Music Hall in New York City. 'It's a better use of energy, in a time of fiscal restraint, to see what we can reuse, remake and renew,' he added. 'It's monstrous to say you have to tear them down.'"
FULL STORY: New Deal architecture faces bulldozer

Maui's Vacation Rental Debate Turns Ugly
Verbal attacks, misinformation campaigns and fistfights plague a high-stakes debate to convert thousands of vacation rentals into long-term housing.

Planetizen Federal Action Tracker
A weekly monitor of how Trump’s orders and actions are impacting planners and planning in America.

Chicago’s Ghost Rails
Just beneath the surface of the modern city lie the remnants of its expansive early 20th-century streetcar system.

Bend, Oregon Zoning Reforms Prioritize Small-Scale Housing
The city altered its zoning code to allow multi-family housing and eliminated parking mandates citywide.

Amtrak Cutting Jobs, Funding to High-Speed Rail
The agency plans to cut 10 percent of its workforce and has confirmed it will not fund new high-speed rail projects.

LA Denies Basic Services to Unhoused Residents
The city has repeatedly failed to respond to requests for trash pickup at encampment sites, and eliminated a program that provided mobile showers and toilets.
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