The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Under new legislation introduced this week in City Council, naming rights for Pittsburgh's public buildings and advertising on city vehicles and employee uniforms will be sold to the highest bidder in an effort to monetize the city's resources.

July 26 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Priced out of Brooklyn's hippest neighborhoods, young professionals who may have once fled Manhattan in search of affordable housing and "postindustrial charm" are making the reverse move in search of cheaper rents, reports Laura Kusisto.

July 26 - The Wall Street Journal

In stark contrast to recent laws targeting immigrants in Arizona and Alabama, Baltimore is joining a host of other (largely rust belt) cities in designing policies and programs to attract immigrants in order to stabilize their populations.

July 26 - The Washington Post

Last week the Obama administration announced that approvals for seven critical infrastructure projects at five ports along the eastern seaboard will be expedited as part of their <em>We Can't Wait</em> initiative.

July 26 - Examiner

Continuing its 'Cities Project' and its focus on roads and motor vehicles, NPR goes to Syracuse, N.Y. to report on a 1.4 mile stretch of elevated Interstate 81 that runs through the heart of the city, and efforts to tear it down, maybe.

July 26 - NPR:All Things Considered

As the 2012 Summer Olympics begin in earnest today with the first Women's Soccer games, Andrew Zimbalist offers 3 reasons why "hosting the Olympics is a losers game."

July 25 - The Atlantic

After decades of research and development solar power still doesn't pencil out for many home and business owners. Could a thin, transparent solar cell invented by scientists at UCLA change that equation?

July 25 - Los Angeles Times

You read that right...$7 billion. In a plan to be unveiled today, Amtrak is proposing to transform the second-busiest Amtrak station in the country into a hub for high-speed rail and redevelopment, report Jonathan O'Connell and Ashley Halsey III.

July 25 - The Washington Post

Continuing a practice long decried by international rights groups, Nigerian authorities gave the residents of the waterfront shantytown of Makoko a scant 72 hours to vacate their homes before demolishing them en masse, reports Robyn Dixon.

July 25 - Los Angeles Times

The $4.7 billion high speed rail bond appropriation, signed by Gov. Brown on July 18 included $2 billion for transit upgrades in the Bay Area and Southern CA. Max Taves reports that litigation in the Central Valley could target that funding.

July 25 - The Wall Street Journal - San Francisco Bay Area

Winnie Hu reports on how the reopening of the 65th Street Rail Yard in Brooklyn last week is part of a wider, regional rail expansion effort that aims to revive the moribund industry in order to boost economic and environmental benefits.

July 25 - The New York Times

Last week, San Francisco's supervisors approved new legislation intended to jump-start urban farming throughout the city, reports John Upton.

July 25 - Grist

The BBC has provided an infographic timeline indicating when scientists and researchers predict valuable resources and ecosystems will disappear, urging planners and officials to address the dangers of current population and consumption levels.

July 25 - BBC

Even though crime has gone down in the U.S., parents are less likely to let their children walk alone, even to school. Will Doig discusses the argument that "free-roaming" children are a benefit to themselves and the larger community.

July 25 - Salon

Whenever a term is overused, it's up for snark attack. Ben Brown seeks to inoculate himself and others against that tendency, by describing why community health is an admirable goal and how it's connected to economic development (and beer).

July 25 - PlaceShakers

FEATURE

July 24 - Laurel Prevetti

Transportation planners who thought the current job climate couldn't possibly get worse may want to ignore this piece. John Metcalfe reports on studies that show slime is just as effective in planning the path of an urban rail system as humans.

July 24 - The Atlantic Cities

A target of 1950s urban renewal, New Haven is looking to rewrite renewal's wrongs by re-connecting the Hill neighborhood with downtown via a highway cap project. Critics complain the project doesn't go far enough to heal the area's historic wounds.

July 24 - The New York Times

<em>The Wall Street Journal</em> profiles the astonishing $45 million renovation of Queens Plaza, where "a wasteland of potholed roads, a parking lot and elevated subway tracks" has been transformed into an urban oasis.

July 24 - The Wall Street Journal

A group of "urban hacktivists" have been busy transforming Toronto's ubiquitous and ironically named "info pillars" (read: street billboards) into community platforms and art pieces, protesting their improper design and instillation.

July 24 - The Pop-Up City