Land Use

Senior citizen apartment complexes, a gas station, and 17 emergency communication towers are among the latest targets of staunch neighborhood opposition in the St. Louis area. What is the line between reasonable objections and "BANANAS" opposition?

August 4, 2013 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Though Connecticut is well served by commuter rail, a new report indicates that only half of the communities with Metro-North station have land use regulations in place to maximize development around them.

August 4, 2013 - The Hartford Courant

Using 8,000 photos taken from atop the Tokyo Tower, photographer Jeffrey Martin has assembled a 150-gigapixel panorama of the city. The best part - its interactive - meaning you can pan and zoom to an incredible level of detail.

August 4, 2013 - io9

New York Times columnist Paul Krugman looks at two great American cities, one losing population for decades and now filed for bankruptcy, the other growing rapidly but through sprawl, not smart growth. Yet Atlanta suffers lower social mobility.

August 4, 2013 - The New York Times - The Opinion Pages

Middlemen, private jets, communication blackouts: providing design services to the world's most reclusive regime isn't easy. Mark Byrnes describes how one architecture and planning firm was selected to redesign North Korea's airports.

August 3, 2013 - The Atlantic Cities

The 'biggest regional planning effort in a generation' is providing residents of twelve Northeast Ohio counties with an opportunity to discuss how the area can leverage its existing infrastructure rather than continuing to sprawl.

August 2, 2013 - The Plain Dealer

This summer, a new school will begin rising in the Bay Area city of Emeryville that redefines the relationship between a K-12 school and its surrounding community.

August 2, 2013 - Fast Company Co.Exist

In the face of vocal opposition, Vancouver's city council approved a proposed bike route and greenway. For one former councillor, if a third of the speakers in hostile public meetings support a project, that's enough to indicate a silent majority.

August 1, 2013 - The Globe and Mail

Barry Bergdoll, the Museum of Modern Art's Chief Curator of Architecture and Design, has announced he is leaving the museum to take up a post at Columbia University. Over six years he curated a number of popular, and critically praised, exhibitions.

August 1, 2013 - Architectural Record

Since it was begun in the late 1950's, Paris's La Defense business district 'has always worked better in architectural theory than in anthropological practice,' says Georgi Kantchev. A new plan seeks to humanize the spaces between its tall towers.

August 1, 2013 - The New York Times

A far-fetched proposal for Seaport City - a new landfill neighborhood on the East Side of lower Manhattan - is one step closer to reality with New York City's release of a request for proposals to study the idea.

August 1, 2013 - Crain's New York Business

A new study has quantified how Baron Georges-Eugene Haussmann's plans changed the form and function of Paris - a topic that had previously been open to the subjective analysis of urban theorists. The results might surprise you.

July 31, 2013 - BBC

Utilizing an online tool that compares images from Google Street View, researchers have built a better understanding of the 'small, often imperceptible reasons' that make some streets and places feel safer than others.

July 31, 2013 - The Atlantic Cities

Two years after Councilman (now Council President) Herb Wesson vowed to allow vegetable gardens to be planted in public parkways to help improve access to fresh food, an 'edible landscape' motion languishes while the city cracks down on homeowners.

July 31, 2013 - Los Angeles Times

Stuck with millions of square feet of superfluous parking like the Cascadian communities we examined yesterday? Joyce Law offers seven examples of creative repurposing of parking lots and garages for active uses in New York City.

July 31, 2013 - Untapped Cities

A multi-decade vision will transform the auto-oriented DC suburb of Tysons Corner into a vibrant, walkable place. While the subway extension at the heart of the plan will open this year, development will take time. Pop-ups will help bridge the gap.

July 30, 2013 - The Washington Post

Surveys of parking use in multifamily buildings across Cascadia have quantified the extent to which parking requirements have 'force fed' more spaces into projects than developers would provide based on demand. Alan Durning examines the implications.

July 30, 2013 - Sightline Daily

In a world of seemingly infinite variety and excess, simplicity engenders great affection. Hazel Borys offers this query on the subject of cottage living: How is it that less adds up to so much more?

July 30, 2013 - PlaceShakers

The half-mile circle has become the standard metric for focusing planning efforts and judging the impacts of transit-oriented development. A new study examines whether the half-mile circle is an effective predictor of TOD success.

July 30, 2013 - Access

A 'toxic tour' of Los Angeles raises awareness of the harmful effects the city's industrial infrastructure brings to adjacent, often minority, communities. Stops include a battery recycling plant, rendering plant, oil refinery, and scrap yards.

July 29, 2013 - Los Angeles Times