The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

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<p>The message from last weekend&#39;s two-day symposium at Columbia University, the Queens Museum and the Museum of the City of New York on Robert Moses: many aspects of the master builder&#39;s place in history haven&#39;t been told, despite Robert Caro&#39;s 1,162-page Pulizter Prize-winning biography; and that New York may need to rethink the paradigm for big plans and community engagement as the unique metropolis makes new investments in transit, roadways and large redevelopment projects from Ground Zero to Hudson Yards.</p>

March 5 - Anthony Flint

<p>As consumers grow more aware of global warming, corporate giants launch eco-friendly efforts to protect their bottom line.</p>

March 5 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>When the cropland to power an SUV can feed a person for a year, attempts to wean America off of oil through biofuels raises some serious moral questions.</p>

March 5 - AlterNet

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<p>Scrambling to grab that elusive “American Dream” of homeownership, millions plunged into the subprime mortgage market to build wealth through appreciation (if not speculation). Pundits cheered as the ownership rate crept up, lauding the pluck of aspirational minority and immigrant families.</p><p>There’s a reason it is called subprime, though. Lenders offered a smorgasborg of loan “products,” but the bottom line was that they are all very costly for the borrower – often entailing adjustable-rate surprises in the 30 percent or higher range.</p>

March 5 - James S. Russell

<p>UCLA urban planning professor Michael Manville offers four explanations about why US cities don't implement congestion pricing, despite widespread agreement that it works.</p>

March 5 - Urban Planning Research blog, by Randall Crane

<p>Technology advances and oil prices above $50/barrel permit companies to extract far more oil from existing wells using secondary and tertiary recovery methods and target 'heavy' and other 'nonconventional' oil supplies as light oil reserves diminish.</p>

March 5 - The New York Times

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<p class="MsoNormal">The merit of rent regulation is a recurring debate in New York City.<span> </span>On one side are tenant advocates arguing that rent regulation is desperately needed to help poorer households, maintain socioeconomic diversity in New York City, and prevent the City from becoming the preserve of the super rich.<span> </span>Real estate interests on the other hand argue that rent regulation deprives property owners of the right to market their apartments as they see fit, causes landlords to under-invest in their properties, and that in many instances the beneficiaries of rent regulation are affluent.<span> </span>What makes the debate so bedeviling and contentious is that both sides are correct.</p>

March 5 - Lance Freeman

<p>The Bayside neighborhood's economic, cultural and racial diversity is reflected in housing types, restaurants, scrap yards and grocery stores.</p>

March 5 - The New York Times

<p>The almost three-year-old, four-mile, privately built and run, driverless Las Vegas<br /> Monorail has seen its ridership plummet by more than 30% since increasing its adult fare by 67%, so it will report ridership numbers quarterly rather than monthly.</p>

March 5 - Las Vegas Review-Journal

<p>The New York Times urges the city's next transportation chief to promote public transit, walking, and cycling.</p>

March 5 - The New York Times

<p>The effects of climate change are claiming a small Alaskan island community, with rising water levels and melting permafrost eroding the land beneath the homes of the village's 600 people. Relocation seems to be the only option to save the village.</p>

March 5 - BBC

<p>This article from the <em>International Herald Tribune</em> looks at a new rating scale that measures the quality of life in global cities based on the function and amenities of their airports.</p>

March 5 - International Herald Tribune

<p>The city of Hamburg, Germany, is hoping to recreate its identity as a harbor city with an ambitious and expansive redevelopment plan. Many prominent architects have signed up to contribute to the project, which is set to complete in 2020.</p>

March 5 - Der Spiegel

<p>In the latest turn of events in the battle between Disneyland and a proposed housing development, Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle has stepped in to push the company to reconsider its staunch opposition to allowing housing into its tourist resort area.</p>

March 5 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>As the deadline to file claims came to a close, the city of New Orleans was among thousands to submit a claim indicating they would sue the Army Corps of Engineers for damage caused by levee breaches. The city's claim totals more than $77 billion.</p>

March 5 - New Orleans Times-Picayune

<p>Shunning the past approach of building monumental (and expensive) new venues, plans for hosting the 2016 Olympic Summer Games in Chicago and Los Angeles both incorporate temporary and modest stadiums.</p>

March 4 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>While urban growth is heavily regulated in industrialized countries, most of the world develops without a legal planning framework.</p>

March 4 - Lincoln Institute of Land Policy

<p>Homeowners in Seattle are trying to retain use of public land along the city's shorelines, but park advocates want the land for exclusive public use.</p>

March 4 - The Seattle Post-Intelligencer

<p>The new San Francisco Federal Building, designed by architect Thom Mayne, has a soft 'green' underbelly to its hard industrial exterior.</p>

March 4 - Bloomberg

<p>Though it is designed to cushion the blow for workers laid off because of foreign competition, the Trade Act Adjustment program is widely criticized for being difficult to access and unrealistic for many adults with extremely limited incomes.</p>

March 4 - The Wall Street Journal