The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Officials in Baghdad are instituting a new program to sweep beggars off the city's streets -- a number that has risen sharply since the U.S. invasion in 2003.

January 13 - Agence France Presse

Environmentalists reject CA Gov. Schwarzenegger's attempt to waive new highway construction projects from environmental review to qualify for Obama's stimulus package, offering 'fix-it-first' construction and public transit projects as alternatives.

January 13 - Los Angeles Times

It's open season in Montgomery County, Maryland, where hunters are being allowed -- and in some cases encouraged -- to hunt deer in populated suburban areas.

January 13 - The Washington Post

San Marcos, Texas, joins a handful of other cities around the country in requiring pet owners to monitor their pets electronically.

January 13 - News 8 Austin

Officials in Pittsburgh are hoping that expanding transit-oriented development will spur growth in struggling and decaying neighborhoods -- and they have the voter-approved legislation to help.

January 13 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

A new study predicts that by the mid- to late- 21st century, scorching summer temperatures may result in massive failures of heat-sensitive crops such as wheat.

January 12 - The Globe and Mail

Some trends are indicating that when the 2010 Census goes through Phoenix it's going to show a shrinking population -- a first for the booming desert city.

January 12 - The Arizona Republic

Exxon's CEO has joined Al Gore, Dr. James Hansen, and others on the forefront fighting climate change in requesting a carbon tax, though they make in clear it should be in lieu of cap & trade, the method favored by the Democrats.

January 12 - The Wall Street Journal

While the economic downturn is slowing many construction projects in Dubai, the city's 47-station light rail system is moving forward on schedule.

January 12 - Architectural Record

As U.S.-Cuba relations evolve with a new presidential administration, author Richard Louv argues that officials should be careful about relying on commerce to save the country's decaying urban areas without preserving them.

January 12 - Citiwire

Charles Komanoff reveals a revised new plan that aims to bring congestion pricing to New York City and use its revenue to reduce the price of transit.

January 12 - Grist

The city of Chicago has missed a deadline to approve a pending parking fee ordinance that would have helped the city qualify for $153 million in federal grant money.

January 12 - Crain's Chicago Business

The District of Columbia may be expecting the largest gathering of people in America's history for President Obama's inauguration, but many residents will also be leaving town.

January 12 - The Globe and Mail

San Francisco's federally-funded parking experiment SFPark will be a live test of the theories of dynamic parking management popularized by Donald Shoup.

January 12 - Streetsblog San Francisco

Through festivals, lighting master plans, and creative integrations of artistic interpretations, cities across the world are harnessing the power of light to reinvigorate neglected areas and renew public interest.

January 12 - The Christian Science Monitor

BLOG POST

A common refrain among environmentally-minded planners is: policy X will reduce global warming. So why would anyone be dumb enough to oppose policy X? <br /> <br /> But often, global warming will be the weakest, not the strongest, argument for policy X.

January 11 - Michael Lewyn

In this excerpt from their new book, The Urban Homestead, authors Kelly Coyne and Erik Knutzen point out all the ways city dwellers can move away from industrial agriculture.

January 11 - AlterNet

As Liverpool ends its year as the European Union's "Capital of Culture", the city is vastly different and better than it was just a year ago, according to this column.

January 11 - Financial Times

FEATURE

Communities aren't going to get a green code implemented, or any code, without that code appealing to developers, says Sandy Sorlien. They're building our new sustainable places and infilling our old ones.

January 11 - Sandy Sorlien

The new U.S. Embassy in Baghdad embodies all of the negative connotations of the American presence in Iraq and provides an example of how not to build an embassy, according to Jonathan Glancey.

January 11 - Guardian