NPR

With a regional goal of curbing greenhouse gas emissions, the Western governments of British Columbia, California, Washington, Oregon, Arizona, New Mexico and Utah have joined forces to push environmental policies the federal government has avoided.

This report from NPR looks at the city of Las Vegas, the high value of water in the desert, and the water chief who is trying to control the growing city's consumption.

In Venezuela, small community councils funded by oil money are popping up all over the country, taking control over local decisions such as public education, infrastructure, and building plans.

An eclectic group of New York residents who live year-round on boats docked in New York's Hudson River have been granted a reprieve from city officials who had planned to reduce the permitted amount of time boats would be allowed to dock.

The City of Paris is getting ready to put more than 20,000 rental bikes on the city's streets. The program is starting out by installing the first 1,000 automated bike stands in the coming weeks, which many hope will foreshadow the program's success.

Los Angeles has knocked down a former "Crips" gang hangout and has plans to convert it into affordable housing.

New Orleans black population has been more negatively affected by Hurricane Katrina than the city's white population, according to a recent survey.

This report from NPR looks at the preparations, new technologies, and test runs that are currently underway to prepare for Census 2010.

Planners and government officials in India are proposing to let developers build upscale housing and mixed use projects on land where one of Mumbai's largest slums. Concessions have been offered to residents, but many are opposed to the plan.

Delaware is considering three proposals for new environmentally-friendly power plants, and many residents are supporting a plan to build a large offshore wind farm. A recent survey showed that more than 80% of residents favored the wind farm option.

This report from NPR details local opposition to a Department of Homeland Security plan to erect watch towers along the Arizona-Mexico border.

NPR profiles a development company that is Florida's largest landowner, and looks at its New Urbanism-tinged plans for developing more than 800,000 acres in the rapidly growing Florida Panhandle.

The Sante Fe River in New Mexico has been rated the most endangered river in the nation by the environmental group American Rivers.

This report from NPR looks at a Massachusetts school's efforts to build soccer fields in part of the forest Henry David Thoreau wrote about in his book Walden.

An 11-year drought in the Southwest U.S. has a growing small town in Nevada looking to pump water from nearby Beaver Dam, Arizona. Many in the Arizona town are upset over the proposed water-snatch, which they say limits their own ability to develop.

A report from NPR looks at a plan to redistribute land in Bolivia. Land owners are wary of of the plan, despite the government's promise that it would primarily redistribute its own land holdings, and then that of prospectors and investors.

This report from NPR looks at a neighborhood activist who's leading a movement to revitalize a rundown West Oakland neighborhood into a black cultural district.

The U.S. State Department is having trouble filling positions in reconstruction teams in Iraq. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice says there is a shortage of city planners and engineers on the ground in Iraq, and getting more may be difficult.

This report from NPR looks at the many factors that are delaying the disbursement of recovery and housing funds to hurricane victims in the Gulf Coast region.

This report from National Public Radio discusses ideas for placing control of federally-funded Amtrak into the hands of a federal-state partnership. Many feel funding for rail should be de-nationalized and governed by regional bodies.