History / Preservation
Once the subway's pride, R-32 'Brightliner' trains that operate on the C line will soon disappear from service. Mid-century promo videos notwithstanding, the line's rolling stock was in dire need of an update.
WNYC: Transportation Nation
Chuck Wolfe champions urban observation, emphasizing "ghosts" that are important to the authenticity of today's urban change, like oral histories among indigenous peoples passing on cultural traditions from one generation to the next.
The Huffington Post
Plagued by supermarket chains and natural disasters, the public markets of New Orleans could help revive community identity. Here are some of the ways they're getting back in business.
Next City
Confirmed: Los Angeles really does have a rich history. HistoricPlacesLA, a new online database, provides detailed information on the city's historic sites.
CityLab
Blog post
A new scholarly paper argues that ancient and modern cities can be usefully analyzed in a comparative perspective. But what you do with the comps depends on how much you value similarities versus differences in urban form.
Caeser Augustus famously boasted "I found Rome a city of bricks and left it a city of marble." An architectural historian and urban designer at UCLA now has the model to prove the veracity of the claim.
UCLA Newsroom
Be a citizen, not just a consumer.
PlaceShakers
Could it be that places for the dead might be a new source of urban innovation? Austin provides an example of new thinking regarding urban resting places.
Next City
Scientists from the Santa Fe Institute have discovered basic patterns underlying the way cities have always grown. The mechanics of "urban scaling" may have something fundamental to tell us about how large settlements evolve.
Christian Science Monitor
To build ties to its neighbors, a young arts organization embarked on a sprawling multimedia project exploring the past and present of Williamsburg's Latino community.
Satellite Magazine
A detention center that interred Japanese Americans during World War II, once called Jigoku Dani, or Hell Valley, will become a National Monument.
Los Angeles Times
A development proposal for a 1,450 glass skyscraper adjacent to Grand Central Station prompted the Architectural Record to wonder whether New York is chipping away the "Beaux Arts heart" of Manhattan.
Architectural Record
President Barack Obama is expected to announce the Pullman Park neighborhood in Chicago as the country's newest national monument. The move is part of a larger effort to recognize more diversity in the country's public lands.
The Washington Post
Journalist Kathleen Sharp, whose great-grandfather worked on the transcontinental railroad, draws comparisons between that epic achievement and the construction of California's high speed rail in this New York Times op-ed.
The New York Times - Opinion
Blog post
Andrew Whittmore of the University of North Carolina Department of Urban and Regional Planning identifies planning theory in everyday practice.
A mere day after the Interior Department announced it would permanently block drilling in much of the Arctic Refuge by designating it as wilderness, it proposed allowing drilling in the Gulf, along Atlantic coast, and surprisingly, offshore Alaska.
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Setting off a political firestorm in the words of one journalist, President Obama proposed to designate most of the pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as wilderness, angering congressional Republicans.
The Wall Street Journal
Portsmoth, New Hampshire has created textured, 3D maps of its historic district to help illustrate development impacts during the approval process.
Next City
After a high-profile demolitions claimed a 129-year-old building in Dallas, preservationists are getting a seat at the table in the form of a newly formed task force.
The Dallas Morning News
It's 'back to the future' for Atlanta's $98 million investment that opened Dec. 30, although these will be modern, not vintage, streetcars that operate on a small loop. Streetcars last operated here in 1949. Mayor Reed intends to lengthen the route.
The New York Times
