The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Some younger families and retirees are choose to "downsize" their homes. The decision comes with several lifestyle benefits.

May 24 - Parade

An independent study finds that 3.1 billion in repairs made to New Orleans' levee system won't protect the city from another Katrina-like hurricane.

May 24 - The Los Angeles Times

You may not have heard of him, but Portland's Homer Williams is busily making big changes in Downtown Los Angeles.

May 24 - Los Angeles Downtown News

New York Senator Hillary Clinton has revealed her plans to make ethanol use widespread by 2015. Is it a coincidence that Iowa, site of the first presidential caucus, is a leading producer of the fuel?

May 24 - Associated Press

We can do a lot of things to move to a future powered by alternative energy sources. One of the most important, writes K.C. Golden, is to elect leaders who are willing to tell us the truth -- that fossil fuels are expensive.

May 24 - Tom Paine

Canada's Environment Minister defends against intense criticism of her country's decision to back out of the Kyoto Accord, but hints at future commitments if a new international consensus emerges.

May 24 - The Globe and Mail

The Int. Journal of Health Geographics publishes a study on how "GIS and cluster analysis makes it possible to objectively characterize urban neighborhoods and to select comparable and/or contrasting neighborhoods for community-based health studies."

May 24 - International Journal of Health Geographics

Author Matt Dellinger examines the work of the New Urbanists in Mississippi and Louisiana, and whether or not New Urbanism has reached the tipping point in terms of wider acceptance.

May 24 - Oxford American

The New York Times Magazine critiques the efforts of New Urbanists to redesign Biloxi, Mississippi, after Hurricane Katrina, referring to the group as "faintly cultish".

May 24 - The New York Times

A city does not consider an unmarried couple and their children a family and denies them an occupancy permit.

May 23 - The Los Angeles Times

Two weeks after graduating from UW-Madison with a Master's degree in urban and regional planning, Ryan Ziegelbauer is competing against 23 other finalists to be a Legoland California model builder. The coveted position is highly competitive.

May 23 - Isthmus

The Financial Times presents an interesting comparative analysis of growth policies and past trends in China and India and comments on their future impacts.

May 23 - The Financial Times

BLOG POST

The always-rewarding <a href="http://bldgblog.blogspot.com/2006/05/interview-with-mike-davis-part-1.html">Bldgblog</a> has a fun interview with <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/search/102-2109421-3874529?search-alias=aps&keywords=Mike%20Davis">Mike Davis</a>, who wrote the iconic history of Los Angeles <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0679738061/sr=8-3/qid=1148411041/ref=pd_bbs_3/102-2109421-3874529?%5Fencoding=UTF8"><em>City of Quartz</em></a>. Davis is flacking a new book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1844670228/sr=8-1/qid=1148411041/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-2109421-3874529?%5Fencoding=UTF8"><em>Planet of Slums</em></a>

May 23 - Anonymous

Randal O'Toole blames land use planning for high housing costs in San Francisco in this op-ed column.

May 23 - The San Francisco Chronicle

Hercules, California, known for a recent New Urbanist development, may stop a proposed Wal-Mart by using eminent domain to take its land. This would be the first time that a city took land from Wal-Mart.

May 23 - The San Francisco Chronicle

Why does Los Angeles have an inferiority complex?

May 23 - The Los Angeles Times

Differences between largely rural, conservative northern Maine and the more urban and progressive southern half of the state are growing wider, with conflicts coming to a head over the preservation of Maine's famous North Woods.

May 23 - USA Today

California's November transportation bond is $20 billion, with $4 billion for transit. Yet Gov. Schwarzenegger proposes to use a public transit account for the same amount, to help pay off the bond's debt payments.

May 23 - The Sacramento Bee

Arguably the most popular observatory-museum-planetarium in the world, the newly-restored Griffith Observatory is also one of the most recognizable buildings in Los Angeles.

May 23 - The Planning Report

Many West Virginians must leave the state to find work, but they long for home.

May 23 - The New York Times