The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The Buckminster Fuller Institute has announced the 33 finalists in its Buckminster Fuller Challenge. All contest entries are featured on their website, ranging from an 'Urban Space Station' to an idea for 'making energy from dirt'.

March 2 - The Buckminster Fuller Institute

The National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission advises Congress that the U.S. is in an infrastructure crisis, and that they must raise the gas excise tax by ten cents now and begin the switch to a VMT fee.

March 2 - The New York Times: Energy & Environment

Studies showing rising concentrations of poorer immigrant groups in Canada's largest cities is causing concern that the country is becoming polarized. But, writes Doug Saunders, such enclaves may be the first step towards integration.

March 2 - The Globe and Mail

In a report detailing three decades of growth in the SF Bay Area, an urban think tank details how commercial growth has been disproportionately in the non-transit accessible suburban office parks. However, SF shares the blame. Solutions are offered.

March 2 - San Francisco Chronicle

The housing market has bombed, bringing prices and values to devastating lows. But despite lower prices, affordable housing is still in too short of supply, according to this piece from <em>Time</em>.

March 2 - Time

Population centers the world around are caught in the grips of devastating droughts. Though temporary conditions, their increasing frequency should be a call to water-saving action, writes Tom Englehardt.

March 2 - Mother Jones

American Public Transportation Association President William Millar visits <em>Living on Earth</em> to discuss how the stimulus will benefit public transit in the U.S. -- and why it's "the best of times and the worst of times."

March 2 - Living on Earth

Builder Magazine selects 15 picks for the best housing markets to be in in the U.S. in 2009. Houston, Texas comes out on top, and, predictably, Detroit scrapes the bottom.

March 2 - Builder Magazine

FEATURE

A new design competition is seeking solutions to L.A.'s transportation problems. But the real solution may not have anything to do with transportation at all.

March 2 - Nate Berg

A new government-sponsored watchdog website will allow citizens to track stimulus-funded projects. It's an effort to insure accountability. Neal Pierce wonders if that accountability will translate into smarter patterns of development.

March 2 - Citiwire

This commentary from <em>re:place</em> magazine offers tips and insights into how one can ride transit like a pro.

March 1 - re:place

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman"> </span></span><span style="font-size: 11pt"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">Architecture is certainly headed for its own version of the Big Bang. A density of firms are simmering with scarce backlog, delinquent collections, looming layoffs, high overhead, low morale as weakened management relies on a foggy stimulus package to forestall an explosion of great magnitude. After the inevitable, our profession will reconstitute based on a new chemistry.

March 1 - Rick Abelson

The Los Angeles suburb of Industry has approved plans to build a stadium in the city in hopes of luring a football team back to the L.A. area.

March 1 - Associated Press

The new federal budget represents a broad increase in funding for urban programs. New York in particular is to benefit greatly from the new spending plan.

March 1 - New York Daily News

The City of Denver plans to spend more than $15 million over the next decade to purchase real estate near mass transit.

March 1 - The Denver Post

The federal stimulus package has made infrastructure into a hot topic among states. But, as Mary Newsom writes, states are not addressing the land use patterns that drive up the costs and bring down the efficiency of infrastructure.

March 1 - Citiwire

The Midwest has high hopes on capturing a big chunk of the federal stimulus money directed towards high speed rail projects.

February 28 - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A new plan is taking form in Brazil to regularize titles to rainforest land -- an effort the government hopes will fight deforestation.

February 28 - The Economist

A boomtown in the desert that was expected to grow in population to more than 350,000 by 2020 is going bust, and putting things in perspective as the economy dives and foreclosures spread.

February 28 - The Wall Street Journal

This piece ponders whether slum tourism in places like Dharavi and the favelas of Brazil is a valid form of cultural exchange or merely voyeuristic exploitation?

February 28 - National Geographic Traveler