The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Seen across the Internet this week: a picture of a crazy (brilliant?) idea for stabilizing one's self on a subway car without touching any germ-filled surfaces. It may not be the wildest thing you'll see on a Tokyo subway, but it's probably close.

June 28 - Rocket News 24

Why can't California make it easier for its millions of visitors, and residents, to travel from airports to urban centers via direct rail routes? The state is investing billions in its rail and air infrastructure, but can't seem to connect the two.

June 28 - Zocalo Public Square

With 150 tons of golf-course bunker sand, the Downtown Detroit Partnership has turned a traffic island at the southern end of the Campus Martius into an urban beach, part of a larger effort to revitalize they city's downtown.

June 28 - Detroit Free Press

With of support of leaders in Beijing, Chinese investors are making their presence known in U.S. commercial and residential real estate markets. The levels of foreign investment are reminiscent of the Japanese buying binge of the 1980s.

June 28 - The New York Times

Over the next decade, $1 billion will be spent to repair the state's deteriorating roads. Like many states unwilling to raise gas taxes, most will come from transfers from the general fund, though $41.4 million per year will be from car sales taxes.

June 28 - South Carolina's $1 billion Road Bill Signed By Gov. Haley

A new research study out of Switzerland quantifies the disproportionate contribution to greenhouse gas emissions made by large homes and relatively long commutes. In one Swiss town, twenty-one percent of households create 50 percent of the emissions.

June 28 - The Atlantic Cities

It was supposed to launch last year. Then it was going to start this spring. Now, Bike Nation, the supposed operator of L.A.'s citywide bike-share system, is saying the first of its 4,000 bikes won't appear on city streets until "sometime" next year.

June 28 - Los Angeles Times

Carl Skelton argues that the public needs new tools of citizenship to participate fully in the digital cities of the near future.

June 28 - Places Journal

Don't let anyone tell you that planning isn't dangerous. Past APA President and current Raleigh Planning Director Mitchell Silver was allegedly punched by a resident opposed to rezoning that would allow the construction of a gas station.

June 28 - News & Observer

For years, public leaders have touted low interest rates as a fantastic opportunity to borrow money to modernize America's aging infrastructure. That opportunity looks to be ending, as rising interest rates batter the municipal bond market.

June 28 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

If the market demand is there, why isn't more mixed-use housing getting built? Follow the money.

June 27 - Tim Halbur

Home prices are rising throughout the U.S., signaling a sustained recovery of the housing market. But declining homeownership rates and record levels of burdensome housing costs point to a recovery that's only benefiting some Americans.

June 27 - Housing Perspectives

A multifaceted £100 billion infrastructure modernization plan for the UK was announced this week by Treasury Minister Danny Alexander. The opposition Labour party is objecting to the timeline for the investments, which aren't due to start until 2015.

June 27 - BBC News

Online car services like Uber and Lyft have waged highly publicized regulatory and political battles in NYC, D.C., and elsewhere. After the city sent out cease-and-desist letters to companies this week, L.A. has emerged as the newest battleground.

June 27 - Quartz

Despite a prickly political atmosphere, the Seattle suburb of Bainbridge Island recently transformed the main artery of its town center, Winslow Way, in what author Mark Hinshaw, FAIA, calls “a really cool way.”

June 27 - Crosscut.com

Writing in Foreign Policy, The Tyee's prolific environmental writer, Andrew Nikiforuk, blasts Canada for becoming a "rogue, reckless petrostate" due to its economic dependence on exporting oil. He holds Prime Minister Stephen Harper responsible.

June 27 - Foreign Policy

If there's one common thread uniting the recent protests in Brazil and Turkey, it's the growing inequality evident in cities, and the inability (or disinterest) of the public sector in bridging that gap through public services.

June 27 - The Daily Beast

Seeing an opportunity to cut costs, attract residents, and respond to changing demands of tenants, commercial and residential developers in the Seattle area are investing in amenities for bicyclists.

June 27 - Puget Sound Business Journal

Homeownership is slipping out of reach for many Americans, caused largely by the lack of affordable housing inventory. There is a solution to the inventory shortage that many buyers, advocates and policymakers are overlooking: Manufactured Housing.

June 27 - Rooflines

With two City Council committee votes this week, civic groups and New York's most prominent architecture critic appear to have won their very public battle to ultimately boot Madison Square Garden from atop Penn Station, reports Matt Chaban.

June 27 - Crain's New York Business