The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>Soaring fuel costs are seeing more people turning to non-conforming vehicles, such as golf carts. But studies show that they are a risky mode of transportation.</p>

June 13 - The Globe & Mail

<p>A major rezoning plan has been approved in Vancouver, including the toughest environmental standards in North America.</p>

June 13 - The Vancouver Sun

<p>MI5 has requested that planners and architects keep some details of building designs top secret as part of the fight against terrorism.</p>

June 13 - The Architect's Journal

<p>Vancouverites send a sculpture packing, stirring up a debate over the role of public art.</p>

June 13 - The Canadian Press

<p>A case over land rights in the West going back decades has been awarded to the estate of a deceased property rights activist, who contended that the Forest Service deprived his ranch of water.</p>

June 12 - Yahoo News

<p>North Oaks, Minnesota is one of a handful of towns pushing back on Google, claiming that their Street View feature is a violation of privacy.</p>

June 12 - Star Tribune, Minneapolis-St. Paul

<p>Santa Monica, CA is succeeding where other larger cities have failed, creating a public WiFi system that actually makes money.</p>

June 12 - Marketplace

<p>Exeter, California, may lie off the beaten path and be little-known outside the southern San Joaquin Valley. But its thriving, spotless downtown would be the envy of most cities.</p>

June 12 - California Planning & Development Report

<p>Gas-guzzling SUVs no longer rule the U.S. auto market.</p>

June 12 - Wired Autopia

<p>Instead of sending an ambulance every time someone calls 9-1-1, the Houston City Council voted to contract with a telephone nursing service for non-emergencies.</p>

June 12 - The Houston Chronicle

<p>A report announced by Mayor Michael Nutter estimates that Philadelphia's park system has a combined economic value of $1.9 billion in services, income and taxes to the city.</p>

June 12 - The Philadelphia Inquirer

<p>A charity in Britain wants to replicate the success of London's heavily used Speaker's Corner in other parts of the country to encourage public interaction and discussion. Some say it's an idea that could never be.</p>

June 12 - The Christian Science Monitor

<p>Urban farms in Cuba have proven successful at feeding the country and providing hundreds of thousands of jobs.</p>

June 12 - International Herald Tribune

<p>This article from <em>City Journal</em> looks at the anti-modernist architect Leon Krier's plan for remaking suburbs into self-contained towns.</p>

June 12 - City Journal

BLOG POST

<p> <br /> For nearly all of my adult life, I have lived in small towns or urban neighborhoods. But for the past two years, I have lived in sprawl. When I moved to Jacksonville two years ago, I moved to Mandarin, a basically suburban neighborhood about nine miles from downtown. As I looked for apartments in 2006, I noticed that in many ways, Mandarin is typical sprawl: our major commercial street (San Jose Boulevard) is as many as eight lanes in some places, and even most apartments are separated from San Jose’s commerce. [See http://atlantaphotos.fotopic.net/c872477.html for my photos of Mandarin and other Jacksonville neighborhoods.] I thought Mandarin would be a typical suburb: homogenously white and upper-middle class. <br />

June 11 - Michael Lewyn

<p>Housing groups in Katrina-affected regions are expressing their outrage after a CNN investigation uncovered that tons of supplies intended for hurricane victims sat in storage for two years before being given away to cities and other organizations.</p>

June 11 - CNN

<p>In Newburyport, Mass., critics tried to stop Mark Roland from converting an historic clam shack into a home. Roland claims: 'It's recycling.'</p>

June 11 - The Boston Globe

Thanks to industrialized agriculture, there’s a wide gulf between those who produce food and those who consume it. Too many city-dwellers lack access to nutritious, non-processed foods. Dave Steel thinks that urban agriculture is the key.

June 11 - The Next American City

<p>Banker Dave Ridson wants to build a racetrack on a site preservationists say is an historic Civil War site. But where the battle actually fought is a matter of debate.</p>

June 11 - The Houston Chronicle

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">The </span><a href="http://www.apta.com/"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman; color: #800080">American Public Transit Association</span></a><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman"> reports that </span><a href="http://www.apta.com/media/releases/080602_ridership_report.cfm"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman; color: #800080">transit ridership climbed to 10.3 billion trips during the first quarter of 2008</span></a><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">, the “highest number of trips taken in fifty years.” That represents a 3.3 percent increase overall over the previous year while vehicle miles traveled, a measure of demand for car travel, fell by 2.3 percent, they observe.</span>

June 11 - Samuel Staley