The Daily Source of Urban Planning News
The New Suburban Ghetto
<p>High foreclosure rates are turning Charlotte's new starter home suburbs into bastions of crime and decay.</p>
Bangalore Techies Advocate For Bicycling Amenities
<p>As the city traffic grinds to a crawl due to the rising amount of vehicles on the road, techies in Bangalore have taken a liking to commuting on bicycles.</p>
Creativity Needed To Solve L.A.'s Traffic Problems
<p>This piece from the <em>Los Angeles Times</em> takes a look at two big ideas for fixing L.A.'s congestion: subway and monorail.</p>
Walkability Report Raises Questions and Doubts
<p><em>California Planning and Development Report</em>'s Paul Shigley reviews the recent report on walkability released by the Brookings Institution and finds some of its claims dubious.</p>
Houston Makes Agreement With Advertiser To Cut 800 Billboards
<p>The City of Houston has come to an agreement with Clear Channel Advertising for the company to remove about 800 billboards from the city -- the result of a citywide plan to clean up the city's "visual clutter" that started more than 20 years ago.</p>
Main Street Preservation Aims Harm Economy
<p>This article from <em>Reason</em> looks at a regulatory system in Alexandria, Virginia, that seeks to maintain the city's historic Old Town neighborhood. But is the regulation burdening local businesses owners to the point of hurting the economy?</p>
Amtrak: Maybe Now?
<p>With increasing train ridership and more people shying away from the gas pump, Neal Peirce asks whether now might be Amtrak's time to shine.</p>
Cars Take Back Seat in Planned Transit-Friendly Street
<p>In Toronto, planners have unveiled a street design that separates a planned streetcar line from auto traffic, bike lanes, and parking. Many are calling it a first for the city -- making the street decidedly transit- and pedestrian-friendly.</p>
The Expanding Subway of Beijing
<p>This blog post from <em>Wired</em> takes a look at the expanding subway system of Beijing, China -- a system that is expected to become the world's second largest by 2015.</p>
Canada's Capital Errors
<p>Thanks to a series of "lousy" public policy decisions, Ottawa - Canada's national capital - is growing increasingly dysfunctional, writes Jeffrey Simpson.</p>
Lagos: Africa's New York City
<p>This video from <em>Current</em> profiles Lagos, Nigeria, the world's fastest growing megacity.</p>
Closing Schools Opens Doors
<p>On the tail of a recent announcement that Washington D.C. would decommission up to two dozen public schools, columnist Roger K. Lewis suggests that the closings can be a good thing, and that they open the door for adaptive reuse.</p>
Car-Free Days Flood London With Pedestrians -- And Commerce
<p>Temporarily pedestrianized streets in London brought nearly a million people out for a day of walking and shopping recently, resulting in more than $200 million worth of sales.</p>
Walls Create Safety, Segregation In Baghdad
<p>More and more walls are rising in Baghdad neighborhoods, giving areas a calmer, safer feel. But the walls also create a prison-like atmosphere and many residents are conflicted about the tradeoff.</p>
Is This Liquor Store An Amenity Or A Nuisance?
<p>In a gentrifying neighborhood in Washington D.C., residents are campaigning against a local liquor store they say encourages littering and public drunkenness. But longtime neighborhood residents defend the store, calling it a neighborhood staple.</p>
Small Towns Look To Keep Young Professionals By Increasing Affordable Housing
<p>County officials in New York are looking to award more than $87 million to small towns to increase their stock of affordable housing -- an effort aimed at luring and keeping young professionals. But opposition to this development type is a hurdle.</p>
Universal Sanitation Far Off In Brazil
<p>At the current rate of infrastructure spending for sewer construction and other sanitation measures, there won't be universal access to sanitation in Brazil fore more than 115 years.</p>
Development And Logging To Blame In Flood
<p>Devastating floods in the southern Washington community of Chehalis have many tracing the roots of the problem back to clear-cut logging and a long pattern of unchecked floodplain development.</p>
Selling The Garden City That Isn't A Garden City
<p>This article from the <em>Warsaw Business Journal</em> looks at how the concept of the Garden City is gladly embraced by developers to market their housing projects, but rarely are its design characteristics included in the actual development.</p>
States Dependent On Colorado River Water Agree On Plan
<p>The seven western states dependent on the Colorado River for their water are on the verge of coming to an agreement on a management plan to ensure a steady supply of water from the increasingly stressed source. But some say the plan won't do enough.</p>
planning NEXT
City of Thousand Oaks
City of Wisconsin Rapids
The Architects Foundation
University of Cincinnati Online
Northern Illinois Transit Authority (NITA)
The Pocatello Development Authority
The Urban Renewal Agency of the City of Pocatello
FREE Course: Walkable City 1: Why Walkability?
After describing his path towards focusing on walkability as the essence of good planning, Jeff Speck marches through his five principal reasons for making more walkable places.
Reinventing Malls: Planning Alchemy—Turning Gray Fields Into Gold
The course focuses on the opportunities and imperatives that shape reinvention of mall sites.
