Nebraska

Nebraska may play a key role regarding decision for pipeline that will run from Canada to Texas. Many businesses and labor groups support the Keystone XL project; many environmentalists oppose it.

TransCanada is trying to use eminent domain to obtain easements from unwilling landowners for the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.

Each year, the American Planning Association singles out neighborhoods that "...represent the gold standard in terms of having a true sense of place, cultural and historical interest, community involvement, and a vision for tomorrow."

A group of local artists in Omaha, Nebraska are putting their mark on old grain elevators located right in the heart of the city, making the art pieces an Omaha fixture.

The rural Midwest produces much of our nation's food supply, and yet small towns in the heartland and around America are increasingly and ironically becoming food deserts - places where citizens have little access to fresh, healthy foods.

Like many other towns, Hooper, Nebraska (pop. 827) started to die when a bypass was built around it. To bring folks back to the town's core, residents and business people of Hooper came together to remind the world of Hooper's existence.

The city of Lincoln, Nebraska, is asking locals to submit and vote on ideas to integrate into its new master plan, hoping to get citizens more involved in the process and test out unconventional ideas.

A small town in Nebraska is reviving the Homestead Act, offering plots of land to people in order to cash in on property taxes down the line. Other places are following suit.

Bureaucratic snafus between the Nebraska Department of Roads and the Federal Highway Administration have caused numerous highway, bridge and road projects to be delayed. FHA head Victor Mendez met with local officials to sort out the mess.

The new urban design review board once again deems that a publicly backed project doesn't do enough to encourage activity on the street and sends the Downtown Improvement District back to the drawing board.

The city of Omaha, Nebraska, has announced plans to build a network of bike lanes throughout the city, boosted by private contributions of more than $600,000.

In Nebraska, a state experiencing just a moderate level of Hispanic immigration inflow, Attorney General Jon Bruning has drawn the line on who he’ll protect from abusive housing policies and who he won’t. For him, immigrants simply aren’t worth it.

The population shift from rural to urban areas is making big changes in the Great Plains. While many rural small towns are disappearing, the shift is opening new doors for business and preservation.

New census figures are showing an increasing trend of rural population decline, as more and more people are moving to urban metropolitan areas. These are just two stories of waning population in some of the nation's rural areas.

Omaha, Nebraska, may be leading the way for cities around the country to integrate urban design with their master plans. Omaha's far-reaching urban design standards could be law by the year's end.