The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

With more than 11,000 acres of brownfield sites in New York City sitting underused due to contamination, officials there want to get things cleaned up and reused. Urban designer Kaja Kühl offers this field guide to small-scale bioremediation to help.

November 7 - Urban Omnibus

With not much undeveloped land left in Mumbai for fresh developments, the city’s real estate growth will largely be propelled by the success of its many slum redevelopment schemes, according to a recent study.

November 6 - LiveMint.com

The 1910 law, responsible for preserving views of the capitol from most roof decks, is being challenged by a small group of architects and developers who believe a modest change would inject vitality, sustainability and revenue into the urban fabric.

November 6 - The Herald Tribune

Jonathan Glancey argues that in the wake of the UK government's culling of Commission for Architecture and the Built Environment, and a recession which only diluted our consumerist thirst, the current aim to build cheaply has cost us design quality.

November 6 - The Guardian

The Expo’s stated theme was “Better City, Better Life,” and organizers boasted it was the first World’s Fair devoted to the contemplation of cities.

November 6 - Fast Company

New analysis from the CNW group shows that the percentage of new cars sold to 21-34 year-olds hit a high of nearly 38 percent in 1985 but decreased to 27 percent today. The shift is changing life in our cities and manufacturers marketing strategies.

November 6 - MSNBC News

Christopher Hawthorne at the L.A. Times says that the Republican rise to power will likely spell doom for Mayor Villaraigosa's request for a federal loan to speed up transit construction. Still, he writes, the work will go on.

November 5 - The Los Angeles Times

So says APA President Mitchell Silver, AICP, in a recent interview. "...but planners were the agents, they had to implement it."

November 5 - Model D Newsletter

While new Wisconsin and Ohio Republican governors are not supportive of high speed rail and my try to steer their state's high speed rail awards for road purposes, the new Republican governors of Iowa and Michigan appear to be Amtrak supporters.

November 5 - The Wall Street Journal - U.S.

Recent visualizations of "augmented reality" portray a future of surfaces alive with advertising overwhelming useful information. Design company BERG has created a video to show a much more fun and friendly vision of our information-rich future.

November 5 - BergBlog

Business interests on a downtown commercial street complain a transit mall is making the area less attractive for retail.

November 5 - Streetsblog

A waterfront redevelopment project in Port Harcourt is drawing fire from human rights advocates.

November 5 - The Guardian

On Tuesday, balloters issued a resounding 'no' on Amendment 4, which would have required voter consent to change comprehensive land use plans at the city, county and state levels.

November 5 - Daily Business Review

Wendell Cox believes so. In this article, he quantifies the effect of land use regulation on the cost of new home construction, which he says leads to

November 5 - New Geography

Cary Lowe, Los Angeles-based attorney and advocate for energy efficiency, makes the case for the economic benefits of energy efficiency retrofits to the state of California.

November 5 - The Planning Report

Steven Johnson examines how officials in New York and other cities can leverage information collected from public call centers to build better cities.

November 5 - Wired

Jonna McKone looks at how Hispanics are transforming urban spaces and how city planning and transportation policies respond.

November 4 - TheCityFix

"Landscape Urbanism," a school of thought that argues that landscape and natural forms are more capable of shaping cities than architecture, is gaining ground in the U.S. Andrés Duany reports that to his dismay, it's also taking over Harvard.

November 4 - Metropolis Magazine

U.S. Environmentalists say that despite a Republican rout in the recent election, the rejection by voters of California's Prop. 23 (which would have suspended enviro regulation if unemployment was over 5.5%) shows that wasn't the issue.

November 4 - The Christian Science Monitor

Kiran Stacy looks at some of the challenges facing what is intended to be the world's first carbon-neutral city.

November 4 - Financial Times