The Wall St. Journal

Builders John Wieland Homes & Neighborhoods, hit hard by the downturn, is meeting consumer price points by creating compact home designs instead of the 4,700 sq. ft. homes that were their bread and butter.

A new book edited by John Julius Norwich with that title selects the 68 cities that have made the most impact on history. The Wall St. Journal has a review.

Richard Florida notes that there are only 40 significant mega-regions that drive the global economy, and are poised for faster recovery from the economic slowdown.

When it turns frustrated drivers to different modes like transit, walking, biking and carpooling, says writer David Owen.

The Wall St. Journal assembled a panel to determine which cities will be the next 'youth-magnets,' using factors like economic diversity and lifestyle to make their selections. Number one? A tie between Washington, D.C. and Seattle.

A new film focuses on the life of a home designed by architect Rem Koolhaas for a client in a wheelchair, which radically redefines domestic living, and the results of the experiment when put to actual use.

In Brighton, Colorado, solar panels on one person's farm could be built by an investment from another local, creating the first solar co-operative in the U.S.

A new report from The National League of Cities shows that declining property and sales income is impacting city coffers, resulting in layoffs and cuts to construction projects.

The Fed's passenger rail stimulus program kicked opened its doors on Monday, and states were ready with a slew of funding requests. California submitted 42 applications, totaling $1.1 billion.

As recently as the turn of this century, retailers were taking a chance on downtown Detroit. But today, Starbucks, Borders and others are pulling their stores out.

In Phoenix, human traffickers are using foreclosed homes to hold illegal immigrants hostage.

The median home price in California notched up 1.4% in April from the previous month, prompting some to announce the market has bottomed out and is recovering.

Small towns like Mesa, WA and larger ones like Vallejo, CA may be forced to dissolve in light of their worsening finances. Local counties will need to absorb residents.

While nuclear energy is being touted as a possible savior for global warming, an updated MIT study says the technology hasn't progressed and is still too expensive.

The Wall Street Journal asked four architects (including William MacDonough and Steve Mouzon) to design an energy-efficient, sustainable house of the future. The results are in, and couldn't be more different.

By the end of the year, Spain is on course to have a more extensive high-speed rail system than both Japan and France. The system is changing hearts and minds across this usually home-bound nation.

Community businesspeople in Loganville, GA had planned on funding a new park in the town, but with their incomes taking a major hit funds for projects like this are drying up.

The Obama administration is entertaining proposals for using 'geoengineering' to fight global warming, including shooting pollution into the upper atmosphere to reflect back the warming rays.

The revitalization of downtown Los Angeles took another hit this week, as real estate firm Meruleo Maddox Properties Inc., the largest private landowner in the area, revealed that it may have to file for bankruptcy protection.

New projects in North Carolina and Ontario take an old idea of district heating to new levels using solar.