The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>With median housing prices of more than $1 million, the city of Santa Barbara, California, is looking for ways to retain its diminishing middle-class. The plan is to subsidize middle-income housing for residents making up to $177,000.</p>

March 19 - The New York Times

<p>Big cities pack a punch equal to some national economies. The fraction of high-income families in superstar cities is 43 percent higher than in average cities, and those cities' share of poor families is 11 percent lower.</p>

March 19 - National Bureau Of Economic Research

<p>China grants private individuals to own property. Experts say law recognizes power of growing middle class but does not add protections for farmers.</p>

March 19 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>The European Union's environment commissioner has suggested that speed limits be placed on Germany's autobahn -- one of the last roadways in the world with sections unhindered by speed limits. The EU says limits would help reduce carbon emissions.</p>

March 19 - International Herald Tribune

<p>Just like it's possible to share files using peer-to-peer networking, a German research group envisions enabling cars and bikes to share useful traffic and road condition information with other vehicles.</p>

March 19 - Chris Steins

FEATURE

As part of our effort to slow global warming, we should be correcting one of the great errors in the history of American city planning: the post-war binge of urban freeway building.

March 19 - Charles Siegel

<p>With urban areas across the nation facing increasing challenges, some are wondering if the old style of leadership displayed by New York City's legendary public official is required to actually get things done.</p>

March 19 - Columbus Ledger-Enquirer

<p>The city's attractiveness has bred gentrification of many neighborhoods, and small businesses and creative types are fleeing for cheaper pastures.</p>

March 19 - The Oregonian

<p>Though criticized for their flawed vision, Modernist architects tried to engage and improve the broader city -- something some say their contemporary counterparts have completely neglected to address.</p>

March 19 - The Boston Globe

<p>A top architect is advocating the use of zoning and urban design to transform a key urban thoroughfare into a "zipper" bringing together many of the city's top assets and neighborhoods.</p>

March 19 - Memphis Commercial-Appeal

<p>The new wave of residents in downtown Orlando are helping to resurrect long-time churches that never fled to the suburbs.</p>

March 19 - The Orlando Sentinel

<p>A Wayne State University professor has created an urban planning simulation game that allows Detroiters to change a neighborhood along Mack Avenue, one of the city's major thoroughfares.</p>

March 19 - Metro Times

<p>UCLA planning professor Matthew Kahn describes his personal experience publishing his book, <em>Green Cities</em>.</p>

March 18 - Urban Planning Research, A blog by Randall Crane

<p>While Congress is eager to increase fuel economy standards to lower petroleum consumption, ill-planned regulations could do more harm than good, says a senior researcher at RAND.</p>

March 18 - The Detroit Free Press

<p>Thousands of demonstrators in St. Petersburg call for a halt to the proposed Gazprom headquarters, a high-rise tower that would be taller than New York's Empire State Building.</p>

March 18 - INTBAU News

<p>The most recent Canadian Census shows that Canada is rapidly urbanizing. Unfortunately, writes Jeffrey Simpson, its systems of government and economic development strategies are stuck in a rural past.</p>

March 18 - The Globe & Mail

<p>Even with the constant threat of Harvard's ongoing expansion and new attention from developers, the Riverside neighborhood of Cambridge, Massachusetts, still manages to preserve its quirky atmosphere and charm, though affordability has declined.</p>

March 18 - MIT Tech

<p>The Economist reports on how San Jose, CA and Las Vegas, NV, have tried -- and failed -- to revive their downtowns.</p>

March 17 - The Economist

<p>One Chinese lawmaker is claiming the coffee chain's outpost in Beijing's Imperial Palace Complex, a venerable symbol of American capitalism, is tainting the national culture that the site represents.</p>

March 17 - Forbes

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"><strong>Information Strategies for Answering Fundamental Planning Questions</strong></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In universities in the northern hemisphere, April and May are months for completing work and moving closer to graduation. Assignments are due. Exams are looming. Students are too tired to write well and professors are too tired to notice. In the crunch for time, enterprising students look to the power of new information and communication technologies to reach out beyond their harried contexts to experts who can help them answer important questions. If Paul Davidoff (now dead) had email, they reason, he would have been happy to respond.</p>

March 17 - Ann Forsyth