The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Norman Chan uses a beta version of the new SimCity game to test the merits of three familiar types of suburban subdivision design - a rectangular grid, circular sprawl, and cul-de-sacs.

January 31 - Tested.com

A Detroit-based maker of "crowdfunding and social mapping systems," has developed an interactive map of the tax status of every property in Detroit. In bright yellows, oranges, and reds, the city's property tax "black hole" is brutally clear.

January 31 - The Atlantic Cities

Brendan Crain responds to recent criticism of placemaking as a counterproductive and superficial pursuit with a defense of the social and economic capital building elements that are the foundation, and outcome, of the process.

January 31 - PPS: Placemaking Blog

Los Angeles's landmark adaptive reuse ordinance has been credited with helping to spur downtown's dramatic growth over the past decade. However, developers now find it cheaper to build new than reuse the area's historic structures.

January 31 - Los Angeles Downtown News

Experts have disagreed about the net effect of America's increasing clustering of highly skilled and affluent citizens in a relatively small number of metro areas. Richard Florida examines who benefits and who loses from this process.

January 31 - The Atlantic Cities

With Ray LaHood stepping down as Transportation Secretary, is it Antonio Villaraigosa's time? The Los Angeles mayor is termed-out in June and Obama needs a Latino in the Cabinet. And can he move the sustainable communities ball forward for Obama?

January 31 - California Planning & Development Reort

Scores of low emission and hybrid vehicles will no longer be exempt from London's spectacularly successful congestion pricing scheme because their growing popularity has increased pollution and traffic in the capital, reports the Daily Mail.

January 31 - Daily Mail

Dollar stores were already a presence in rural communities, but recession has caused dollar chains to ramp up development to keep pace with the public's growing need to stretch their paychecks. Urban communities aren't immune from chain creep either.

January 31 - Rooflines

France's Environment Ministry has decreed that as of July, all shops and offices in the country will be required to shut off their lights at night in order to save energy and “reduce the print of artificial lighting on the nocturnal environment.”

January 31 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

Shopping for bulky items can be one of the challenges of living car free. Here are three of the best ways I've found for dealing with the problem.

January 30 - Michael Lewyn

Only five months after the city passed the long-overdue update to its 1962 zoning code, City Council members are once again tinkering with the ground rules. Two months after moving to revise parking requirements, they're now focused on outreach.

January 30 - philly.com

In the wake of yesterday's surprisingly unsurprising announcement that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is stepping down, several reporters who focus on transportation issues have taken stock of his tenure.

January 30 - Transportation Nation

Kaid Benfield spotlights an innovative federal program that is "not very well known but deserves to be." The "Greening America’s Capitals" program aims to make America's state capitals showpieces for green infrastructure and green building practices.

January 30 - NRDC Switchboard

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) would like to spend $200 million on improving the city's bike infrastructure over the next 5 years. How many miles of green paint can you get with all that green?

January 30 - The San Francisco Examiner

Writing in The Atlantic Cities, Chuck Wolfe provides ten illustrated examples of enjoyable environments that reflect an evolving recognition for the qualitative aspects of the urban experience.

January 30 - The Atlantic Cities

Patrick Kennedy proposes an elegant and cost-effective way to deal with Dallas's aging elevated freeway and the city's "massive pent-up demand for walkable urban housing" - tear the sucker down.

January 30 - D Magazine

States with Amtrak routes less than 750 miles (excludes lines within Northeast Corridor) will need to subsidize the budget shortfalls - the difference between fares and operating costs, or lose the route. States may cut some lines to prop-up others.

January 30 - The Wall Street Journal

Driven by "the fantasy of the almost-reality," hobbyist mapmaker Andrew Lynch gives new life to plans that never happened with hypothetical maps of the city that almost was.

January 30 - The Atlantic Cities

Homes in the Rockaways are being marketed and sold in the battered conditions that Hurricane Sandy left them, reports Elizabeth A. Harris. Existing residents view them as investment opportunities, but long-term market conditions are uncertain.

January 30 - The New York Times

The plan being proposed for a new bus-rapid-transit (BRT) line operating along busy Ashland Avenue would limit left turns and see the removal of a traffic lane. Will it survive "political vetting by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office"?

January 30 - WBEZ