The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>Architects are not just architects anymore. Now they are planners, too, and some high profile projects all over the world show that this trend is likely to continue.</p>

March 25 - Architect Magazine

<p>This article from <em>Progressive Planning</em> looks at the communal councils being set up in Venezuela and the progress they have made in local planning efforts.</p>

March 25 - Progressive Planning

<p>A public art exhibit in a Baltimore park has elicited complaints and compliments from various voices in the city. But like it or not, the art is good for the city's consideration of and connection to its public spaces, according to this editorial.</p>

March 25 - The Baltimore Sun

<p>The costs of Honolulu's planned commuter rail system have been estimated at nearly $4 billion, but that price tag is expected to rise further as the system develops.</p>

March 25 - The Boston Globe

<p>Review of a project that would have added more than 5,500 homes to the fringes of Los Angeles has been halted after a recent City Council vote. Many expect this to be the death knell for the project.</p>

March 25 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>With more and more energy-efficient homes being built and environmentally conscious industry sited in the city, Freiburg, Germany may be one of the greenest cities in the world.</p>

March 25 - The Guardian

<p>A policy requiring new commercial developments to include public spaces has created more than a dozen new public places in downtown San Francisco since the 1980s. Some say more effort is needed to make these public places known by the public.</p>

March 25 - The San Francisco Chronicle

<p>The city of Tempe, Arizona, is experimenting with brightly colored bike lanes to try to improve bicycle safety.</p>

March 24 - East Valley Tribune

<p>Critic Christopher Hume bemoans the destruction of historic homes in Toronto to make way for new residential condo towers.</p>

March 24 - The Toronto Star

<p>Luxury residential towers are popping up all over New York City, bringing about what one critic calls the "greatest transformation in the city’s physical identity since the 1960s".</p>

March 24 - The New York Times

<p>Report ranks largest 50 US cities by their readiness for $4+ a gallon gas and $100+ a barrel oil prices</p>

March 24 - Common Current

<p>New York's new Governor, David Paterson, added his support to the idea of charging drivers to enter the busiest sections of Manhattan. The city's congestion pricing project is one of the largest toll system projects in the US.</p>

March 24 - The New York Times

<p>The economic slowdown has caused a slowdown in growth, even in the Salt Lake City area -- recently one of the nation's fastest growing regions. This editorial calls on officials to use the slowdown as a chance to reconsider the area's growth pattern.</p>

March 24 - The Salt Lake Tribune

<p>New York Times architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff discusses why the impending breakdown of the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn is a harsh blow to urban planning in New York.</p>

March 24 - The New York Times

<p>A recently announced $12.5 billion metropolitan rail system plan for Sydney has many in the region excited about finally getting a good mass transit system. But they are also wary, as many other proposals promising similar services were never kept.</p>

March 24 - The Sydney Morning Herald

<p>If 'superblocks' are so bad, why are we still building more of them?</p>

March 24 - Streetsblog

<p>The editor of <em>Grist</em>'s recent series on the Army Corps of Engineers and the Mississippi River offers some thoughts about the future challenges and issues facing the region.</p>

March 24 - Grist

<p>This report from <em>NPR</em> looks at the efforts of one educator to help rebuild communities in New Orleans by rebuilding the city's charter school system.</p>

March 23 - NPR

<p>Pianos have popped up in random public places in Birmingham, England -- a public art installation that passively invites passersby to take a seat and tickle the ivory.</p>

March 23 - The Guardian

<p>Two ballot measures on the June ballot in California will challenge the state's eminent domain and rent control rules.</p>

March 23 - The San Francisco Chronicle