The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

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<p> A few days ago, I was trying to take a streetcar in Toronto- and the streetcar was just as congested as any suburban arterial. The lines in front of streetcars were so long that I couldn&#39;t get into the first streetcar. Or the second. Or the third. Instead, I had to wait a few minutes (horrors!) for the fourth streetcar. </p> <p> I asked myself: what if streetcars only ran every hour, instead of every few minutes? Would the streetcars be equally crowded? Of course not. People would abandon the streetcars and start to use cars (if they owned them) and buy them (if they did not yet own them). </p>

October 19 - Michael Lewyn

Japan wants to end its spending on wasteful construction projects, which are the cause of the country's massive debt. But for one small town on the verge of losing a dam, the "wasteful" project is the center of the local economy.

October 19 - The New York Times

That's the slogan seen on t-shirts around Jane Jacobs beloved Greenwich Village, where some locals feel high-end chains are ruining the neighborhood.

October 19 - Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

The City of Odense, Denmark has submitted a new master plan that guides development to make the city carbon-neutral by 2025.

October 19 - Sustainable Cities DK

Housing development, architecture and community building have found a new learning lab in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

October 19 - The Atlantic

Three-wheeled, alternative energy vehicles like the Aptera may soon qualify for funding from the Dept. of Energy.

October 19 - autobloggreen.com

Jeffersonville, Indiana is proposing to turn a district with a bad flooding problem into a beautiful canal with a pedestrian promenade.

October 19 - The Architect's Newspaper

FEATURE

October 19 - Fanis Grammenos

Tara Lohan reviews David Owen's new book, Green Metropolis, which extols the ecological virtues of Manhattan. In her opinion, Owen doesn't ask the right questions and ignores some inconvenient facts.

October 19 - AlterNet

LEED for Neighborhood Design (LEED-ND) is approved to become a permanent certification program.

October 18 - New Urban News

This piece from <em>Urban Omnibus</em> looks at a collaborative effort in New York City to get immigrant populations better engaged in the city's public parks.

October 18 - Urban Omnibus

The city of Toronto is rolling out a new street furniture program. Lisa Rochon calls the new additions to the city's sidewalks an "assault on civic life".

October 18 - The Globe and Mail

The city of St. Louis has been testing out a new sustainable streetscape design that calms traffic and helps absorb stormwater. The test run has been so well-received, the city is thinking about rolling out the design permanently.

October 18 - The Architect's Newspaper

Maine mill town asks citizens to record their memories at downtown "Heart Spots" as part of the master planning process.

October 18 - The Journal Tribune

Not having babies is, arguably, the most effective way of limiting one's carbon footprint. Experts discuss ways to approach this touchy subject.

October 17 - Miller-McCune

Michigan's one-year experiment in giving local mayors and township supervisors the option to appoint someone less than 18 years-of-age to a planning commission appears to be coming to an abrupt end.

October 17 - Building Place Notebook

Foreclosed homes in Phoenix are a new goldmine for one developer, who is buying up land near the city's mass transit lines and marketing properties as transit oriented development.

October 17 - NPR

When it hosts the 2010 Winter Olympics next year, Vancouver will need to clear more than 30,000 vehicles off its roads everyday to avoid total gridlock. Doing so will require much cooperation from locals.

October 17 - The Globe and Mail

Vision 42 has proposed closing NYC's 42nd Street to car traffic and adding light rail along its length. The Mayor isn't interested, but lots of others are.

October 17 - The New York Times

The Wheelchair Foundation has some work to do to become ADA-compliant.

October 16 - FAILblog