History / Preservation

Boston Neighborhood Transforms Church into Housing

How grassroots organizers beat out commercial bidders, and overcame zoning hurdles to redevelop Catholic church into affordable housing.

March 9, 2010 - WBUR - Boston public radio

Feds to Perform Ecological Studies on BLM Land

Tasked with managing millions of acres of public lands, the federal Bureau of Land Management has announced plans to perform detailed ecological studies of some of its most notable properties.

March 7, 2010 - San Jose Mercury News

Collage of the Past and Present

Through a photo collage of historical and current pictures, artist Alden Cudanin documents the changes that have happened in Toronto Since the early 1900s.

March 7, 2010 - Spacing Toronto

Church to Move 1,000 Miles For New Congregation

Mary Our Queen Catholic Church in Norcross, Georgia needs a new building. Rather than build a modern box, they're moving a historic basilica all the way from Buffalo, New York, calling their strategy "preservation by relocation".

March 6, 2010 - PlaceMakers blog

22 Model Cities

WebUrbanist collects pictures of city miniatures built by planning departments, for tourist attractions, or by obsessives who go into painstaking detail to recreate Chicago, Moscow, or Tokyo.

March 5, 2010 - WebUrbanist

Earthquakes Threaten Many Third-World Cities

Port-au-Prince is not an outlier. Many other major cities in developing and poor countries lie along earthquake fault lines and are in danger of destruction.

February 27, 2010 - The New York Times

Moe Steps Down

Longtime president of the National Trust for Historic Preservation Richard Moe is retiring after radically changing the Trust's direction. Will the next president continue Moe's vision?

February 25, 2010 - Architect Magazine

Indonesia Considers New Capital as Jakarta Sinks

As sea levels rise and flooding threatens the foundations on which the city was built, the Indonesian capital of Jakarta is literally sinking into the sea. Now the president is pushing a plan to find a new home for the country's capital.

February 23, 2010 - Agence France Presse

The Historic Costs of Going Green

Preservationists say a new California law that requires new construction to meet stringent green building standards could encourage demolition of historically significant buildings.

February 23, 2010 - NPR

Dropping Bombs and Dropping Parking Lots

This post from The Overhead Wire looks at the impact of parking lot sprawl in American downtowns -- and finds a striking resemblance between those downtowns and bomb-ravaged cities from World War Two.

February 22, 2010 - The Overhead Wire

Hollywood Sign Edited in the Name of Preservation

With the threat of its sale bringing the prospect of hilltop housing development behind the city's most well-known icon, the hills near the Hollywood sign in L.A. have spurred local activists to drape a new anti-development message over the sign.

February 15, 2010 - The New York Times

Preservation Win as Century Plaza Hotel Saved

The developers that purchased L.A.'s Century Plaza Hotel, a swooping mid-century building, planned to raze it and start over. Preservationists fought back, and a new plan has been announced to preserve a significant section of it.

February 11, 2010 - Los Angeles Times

Historic Preservation Programs Nixed By Obama

The Obama administration has cancelled two Federal programs - Save America's Treasures and Preserve America - that were responsible for the restoration of nearly 900 historic structures over the past 10 years.

February 11, 2010 - Treehugger

Reinventing Mobility in Detroit

PBS documents Detroit's attempts to overcome its history as "the Motor City" to create new ways of getting people around. Transit advocates play a big part in this preview, which includes renderings of projected transit options.

February 10, 2010 - PBS

Tiki Preservation

The Royal Hawaiian Estates, a tiki-themed apartment complex built in 1962, was designated an historic district by the City of Palm Springs.

February 8, 2010 - The Desert Sun (Palm Springs)

Reviving the National Mall

After receiving thousands of comments and suggestions, planners in Washington D.C. have narrowed options down to five plans for remaking the National Mall.

February 5, 2010 - The Architect's Newspaper

Atmospheric Cities

Two interesting video submissions this week, one an atmospheric tour of Vancouver, BC and one of San Francisco before the 1906 earthquake.

February 1, 2010 - YouTube

Notes on Structural Change: Redefining the Problem of Weak Markets

The foreclosure crisis spreading across America has burdened cities and neighborhoods with value-draining vacancies and abandoned properties. To counteract the economic havoc they've caused, planners and policymakers must focus on restoring confidence in the market, according to neighborhood planning consultants Charles Buki and Elizabeth Humphrey Schilling.

January 28, 2010 - Charles Buki

Carbon Emission Standards vs. Historic Preservation

In the U.K., new carbon emission standards may mean that great numbers of buildings from the 1960s and 70s will need to be demolished.

January 26, 2010 - The Times Online

Conservation Easements on the Rise

This piece from Miller-McCune looks at the conservation easement and explains how the legal device is being used to protect land and prevent sprawl.

January 22, 2010 - Miller-McCune

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.

Planning for Universal Design

Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.

Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

Top Schools

The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

100 Most Influential Urbanists

The who's who of urbanism, according to Planetizen readers.

Urban Planning Creators You Should Know

A short list of voices on social, video, and podcasting platforms.