The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Honolulu is moving ahead with an ambitious plan to use deep seawater as a natural air conditioning for downtown buildings. The system should be in place for up to 40 clients by 2010.

October 18 - Honolulu Star-Bulletin

40 years of marriage was apparently too many, as a man in Cambodia cut his home in two, moving his half to his parents' property.

October 17 - CNN

Business Week looks for the most recession-proof cities, using as their main criteria an abundance of jobs in stable industries like government, health care, and education.

October 17 - Business Week

As the city pulls more and more people from the suburbs back to the center, planners and developers in Charleston are warming up to the idea of infill development.

October 17 - The Post and Courier

What do you get when you designate a carpool lane on a toll road for hybrids and carpoolers? A 'green' lane, say Illinois planners. However, they still pay the toll. Now add a "HOT lane overlay" to it - solo drivers can use it for a 'premium'.

October 17 - Chicago Sun-Times

That's how landscape architect Edward L. Daugherty sees his job. “I think if there is a thread in my work, it’s to help people use the space that is available,” he says in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution as a retrospective of his work opens.

October 17 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Zip line tours- where you slide down a wire hanging from a lanyard- are growing in popularity in tourist spots like the canopies of rainforests. BLDBLOG proposes an urban application.

October 17 - BLDBLOG

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-size: 12pt"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">A recent report that I coauthored, &quot;</span><a href="http://www.ltsa.govt.nz/research/reports/357.pdf"><span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: Times New Roman">Managing Transport Challenges When Oil Prices Rise</span></a><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">&quot; provides practical policy guidance on how to manage the risks of rising oil prices by increasing transport system efficiency. People with short attention spans might think that this report is already outdated, since global financial uncertainty has replaced rising fuel prices as the crisis-of-the-month. Leading businesses are bankrupt, employees are frightened, consumers are cautious, and fuel prices plummeting. </span></span> </p>

October 17 - Todd Litman

James Dyson, the engineer who appears in vacuum cleaner ads in the States, rails against planners in Bath, England who he claims thwarted the engineering school he was attempting to found there.

October 17 - The Architect's Journal

The CA Air Resources Board unveiled its final ‘scoping plan’ to meet the climate change targets set in the landmark 2006 law, AB 32. Business groups condemned it for its costs while land use planners criticized it for not doing more to curb sprawl.

October 17 - San Francisco Chronicle

The federal transportation spending bill will be up for reauthorization in 2009. The fate of the nation's transportation will hinge on how this bill is reworked, which will largely be determined by who wins this November's presidential election.

October 17 - CNN Money

Cyclists are much more likely to use bike lanes when they're available -- even if it means going out of their way and taking longer routes, according to a recent study from Portland State University.

October 17 - Nate Berg

As construction begins on two large dams in the Amazon, thousands of indigenous people grapple with the prospect of the coming flood and the loss of their land, while environmentalists continue to oppose the construction.

October 17 - The Washington Post

As election day approaches in Honolulu, the Hawaiian capital's mayoral race has centered around transit. The incumbent has been pushing light rail, but now the challenger has unveiled a cheaper bus rapid transit system.

October 16 - Honolulu Star-Bulletin

Canadians went to the polls yesterday and re-elected Stephen Harper's Conservative Party -- which downplayed environmental issues -- while rejecting the "Green Shift" carbon tax plan of the Liberal Party.

October 16 - Globe and Mail

New Orleans homeowners have begun receiving letters from the Army Corps of Engineers demanding that they remove objects that obstruct nearby levees' rights of way, including fences and trees. If history repeats itself, this may get messy.

October 16 - The Times-Picayune

Witold Rybzynski details the vicious cycle behind the nation's shortage of affordable housing.

October 16 - The Wilson Quarterly

Canada's wide open spaces and clean cities are misleading: its arable land could fit in Montana and most of its dirty manufacturing has moved to Asia. A more accurate economic model is required to account for Canadians' ecological footprint.

October 16 - The Walrus

BLOG POST

<p> The answer is: “Because people today would rather not work and instead just sit at home collecting welfare checks.” </p> <p> And the question? If you guessed, “What should you <em>not</em> say in a room full of city planning students?”, congratulations! You win. We would have also accepted, “FDR began a ton of new federal programs during the New Deal. As long as we have a $700 billion financial bailout, what programs would you enact or not enact as part of a New Deal today?” Thanks for playing. We have some lovely parting gifts for you. </p>

October 16 - Jeffrey Barg

Washington, D.C. is almost out of space, and planners are now considering building upward to combat sprawl.

October 16 - The Seattle Times