The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>China is establishing a living wall of vegetation to hold back the Gobi desert that is heading southeast to Beijing.</p>

June 19 - Seed

<p>Amidst Miami's highrise condo boom, the Design District offers buildings and plazas with innovative design at a more human scale.</p>

June 19 - The Miami Herald

<p>Despite big plans to make the city a national example for environmental friendliness, some say Chicago Mayor Richard Daley's measures have failed to produce the intended results.</p>

June 19 - The Chicago Tribune

<p>Sandy Springs, Georgia, with 80,000 residents, has apparently successfully outsourced all government functions, except for police and fire services.</p>

June 19 - The Tampa Tribune

<p>Margaret Wente lists Chicago's strengths and criticizes Toronto's mayor for the city's problems.</p>

June 19 - The Globe and Mail

BLOG POST

<span style="font-weight: normal"><font size="3"><font face="Times New Roman">I recently got <a href="/node/24909" title="Mass Transit Unsustainability">taken to the proverbial wood shed on Planetizen Interchange</a> for arguing that mass transit is unsustainable. So, I decided that it might be useful to look at the mass transit system that seems to be the most successful in nation: New York City. New York has the density and economic activity to sustain transit—perhaps a best-case scenario in the U.S.

June 19 - Samuel Staley

<p>Despite a booming oil economy and a population of almost a million people, Alberta's capital city of Edmonton finds "place branding" a struggle.</p>

June 19 - The Globe & Mail

<p>Wayne Senville is on a trip across the U.S. on Route 50. He reports on how Creve Coeur, Missouri, is a well-kept suburb west of the city of St. Louis, is handling the trend of ranch homes are being torn down and replaced with McMansions.</p>

June 19 - Greetings From Route 50

<p>A long-planned transit tunnel connecting the greater Washington D.C. region to Dulles International Airport is coming up for a vote, but officials say the only way to keep the plan alive is to approve what is a seriously flawed proposal.</p>

June 19 - The Washington Post

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal">An acquaintance of mine is trying to decide whether to move to Los Angeles or New York. <span> </span>Having spent most of her life in the Northeast, New York is a familiar city where she has good friends and job connections. However, she can’t help but feel the draw of the West Coast, and on a recent visit to Los Angeles, she was rather keen on settling down in Southern California, especially when she was comparing the rents in L.A. to those in New York. While rents in New York are increasingly stratospheric, L.A.’s are just exorbitantly high.</p>

June 18 - Christian Madera

<p>BBC One has commissioned The Planners, a fiery, funny and touching new fly-on-the-wall documentary series that will give viewers a unique glimpse inside some of Britain's local planning authorities.</p>

June 18 - BBC (Press Office)

<p>Researchers at UCLA and the University of Virginia have developed the largest and most complete virtual reality simulation of a historic city ever created -- Rome in AD 320.</p>

June 18 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>New regulations requiring higher density housing have some worried about the threat to urban green space in the UK.</p>

June 18 - BBC

<p>Two towers climbing hundreds of feet high above the rest of the neighborhood has some Upper West Side residents upset about the resulting transformation of their community.</p>

June 18 - The New York Times

<p>As low-income residents in New Orleans begin to rebuild their homes, historic regulations are disrupting the process and driving up costs.</p>

June 18 - The York Dispatch

<p>Transit officials in the UK hope a redesign of a transit station will help lure motorists to public transit.</p>

June 18 - BBC

<p>The US EPA is directing educational and research efforts that explain (among other things) the financial benefits of smart growth directly to the nation's largest homebuilders and developers.</p>

June 18 - New Urban News

<p>A 21-mile over-land tunnel has opened in Switzerland, running underneath the Swiss Alps and dramatically reducing the travel times for newly opened high-speed trains connecting Germany, France, and Italy.</p>

June 18 - International Herald-Tribune

FEATURE

While there's no doubt Los Angeles has a traffic problem, it would be a mistake to put congestion relief over neighborhood revitalization.

June 18 - James Rojas

<p>The Minneapolis City Council has approved a measure to crack down on panhandling.</p>

June 18 - Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune