The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The former GM auto industry town of Anderson, Indiana, which struggled as factories closed, is experiencing rebirth as a new industry plans to move in.

March 6 - The New York Times

New data show that in 2008 traffic congestion in the nation's cities declined by 30 percent, the result not of new roads or transit, but of modest declines in VMT.

March 6 - CEOs For Cities

About one out of every five homes in America is worth less than what is still owed on its mortgage. The highest rates of negative equity are in Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, Florida and California.

March 6 - Time

As air travel security tightens and high speed rail expands, getting in and around Spain is becoming easier on the rails than in the sky.

March 6 - NPR

The Obama Administration has outlined plans to assist nearly 4 million homeowners in danger of foreclosure. The total cost to taxpayers runs close to $75 billion.

March 6 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

<p> Once again, US Air (a.k.a. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/dcedrj" target="_blank" title="US SCARE">US-SCARE</a>) has made my life difficult. I was hoping to fly back from Myrtle Beach, SC to Denver yesterday and they cancelled my flight (Myrtle Beach is where the <a href="http://www.csc.noaa.gov/geotools/" target="_blank" title="GeoTools Conferencce">GeoTools</a> conference was and a meeting of the Ecosystem Based Management Tools <a href="http://www.ebmtools.org/" target="_blank" title="EBM Tools Network">Network</a>).  <br />

March 6 - Ken Snyder

With severe budget shortfalls, Philadelphia has turned to its citizens to see where the city should make cuts and what citizens are willing to pay to save.

March 5 - Reuters

Slums have garnered some positive attention lately, from academics (Teddy Cruz) to royalty (Prince Charles). This article looks at just what it is we can learn from them, as well as the challenges that face legitimizing the world's shantytowns.

March 5 - The Boston Globe

In this fourth and final installment on Bus Rapid Transit, Streetsblog and Walter Hook discuss how to make BRT work along 1st or 2nd Avenue--two ready-made BRT corridors.

March 5 - Streetsblog

One blogger makes the case for walkable urbanism, in the context of the social and physical well-being of adolescents specifically.

March 5 - Greater Greater Washington

The Highway Act of 1956 that resulted in the construction of America's Interstate Highway system has gathered a lot of praise recently as a model economy-boosting public works project. But based on the problems it's caused, that praise should stop.

March 5 - Financial Times

Austin joins cities across the U.S. and elsewhere in shifting away from individually-metered spaces and towards pay stations in an effort to increase revenue and efficiencies.

March 5 - Austin American-Statesman

Thousands of homes in development are being halted and thousands more vacant new homes are being foreclosed across California, leading to crime, looting and squatting.

March 5 - Los Angeles Times

This article provides a general breakdown of how state governments plan to use the first installment of transportation spending money from the stimulus. The leeway states have in how to spend has sparked debates among legislators.

March 5 - The New York Times

This piece from <em>Construction Week</em> looks at the environmentally-conscious Xeritown proposed in Dubai and the methods it will take to conserve and create energy.

March 5 - Construction Week

Prisons around the country are looking less and less like the typical concrete box; Washington state has 34 LEED-certified prisons, some of which offer "green work" programs.

March 5 - The New York Times

That's just one of the interesting tidbits in this celebration of the 100th anniversary of the Plan of Chicago and Daniel Burnham in The New Yorker.

March 4 - The New Yorker

Homebuilders may oppose a building moratorium at a time like this, but Pennsylvania Rep. Robert Freeman (D-Northampton) has not let up on his efforts to enact one to give communities a break from development and to discourage sprawl.

March 4 - Philadelphia Inquirer

Americans caught up in the foreclosure crisis can now apply for relief from the Obama Administration's new "loan modification plan."

March 4 - CNN Money

The mayors of Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington have come to an agreement about the size of a new bridge that will connect the two cities -- but on the condition that a bistate commission be set up to control congestion through tolling.

March 4 - The Oregonian