The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

In Philadelphia, an exhibition of historic photos of the Big Easy is being viewed in a new light.

February 17 - The Christian Science Monitor

Study finds that Greenland's ice cap is melting at an accelerated rate and more than doubling the amount of ice melted in the last decade.

February 17 - The Globe and Mail

As warehouse and distribution ramp up with global trade, The Slatin Report offers a look at an intriguing new approach to industrial development.

February 17 - The Slatin Report

Downtown Los Angeles's urban development gets a boost with a new theatre, as movies, live performances, cultural events, and even Karaoke are planned for the center, developed in partnership with ImaginAsian Entertainment.

February 17 - The Los Angeles Times

Market forces alone haven't been able to generate needed investments in areas devastated by Katrina, and people have nothing to return to without those investments. A new idea has promise.

February 17 - Common Dreams

The New York Times focuses on the New York metro area; the region will seek federal legislation to assist these declining suburban communities.

February 17 - The New York Times

Atlanta's Atlantic Station introduces a new community to the 'trendy suburban antidote' of New Urbanism.

February 17 - Business Week

Arizona is reclaiming its architectural heritage.

February 16 - The Arizona Republic

BLOG POST

<img src='http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//CasitasGeo.jpg' width='300' align='right' alt='Mexican burbs' />My link-fu is strong. Please welcome to the Web <a href="http://burbmag.blogspot.com/">Burb</a>, a site dedicated to suburbs and New Suburbanism. From the manifesto:<br /> <br /> <br /> <blockquote>The suburbs, in short, are the American mainstream. Our major writers, dating back to Updike and Cheever, have focused on decoding suburban life, and today Richard Ford, Chang Rae Lee, Rick Moody and others continue that work. Suburban megachurches are the engine of American Protestantism. Eminem is a suburban boy, and a suburban phenomenon, as are the "soccer moms” and "soccer dads” fought over in the last few elections.<br /> <br /> Yet for those who live there, the suburbs can be a bewildering place. Urbanites who have moved out for more space and better schools gaze out the kitchen window into their new garden paradise and ask, "Now what?” Children of the suburbs return to find their sleepy burbs utterly transformed by commercialization. Those on rural routes watch in dismay as farms and tiny towns are supplanted by mass developments and strip malls. All of these people have common problems and solutions, from commuting to child care to what to put on the side of a house. Burb is for all of them.<br /> <br /> We talk about "the suburbs” as a state of mind, but only now have real connections begun to be made among the suburbs of even a single city, never mind nationally. Burb is proposed as a place where mutual recognition and the single purpose that comes from it might be achieved.</blockquote>

February 16 - Anonymous

Mixed-use developments are changing how Americans live, work, and play, according a Business Week review of New Urbanism projects.

February 16 - Business Week

Connections to "disgraced" lobbyist Jack Abramoff are getting in the way of Richard W. Pombo's primary "political obsessions" -- the Endangered Species Act.

February 16 - The Los Angeles Times

Home Builders name energy efficiency as the industry's biggest trend for 2006.

February 16 - Greener Buildings

Swift snow removal is a "political necessity" in New York City. Latest technology comes to the rescue.

February 16 - The Los Angeles Times

The nation's older, inner-ring 'first suburbs' are often bypassed by policies that direct government assistance elsewhere, as discussed by Senator Hillary Clinton and Bruce Katz of the Brookings Institution.

February 16 - CNN

Neither fully urban nor completely suburban, America's older, inner-ring, 'first' suburbs have a set of challenges very different from those of the center city and fast growing newer places, according to a new Brookings Institution report.

February 16 - The Brookings Institution

A new report shows that Boston's Big Dig has reduced commute times, improved access to Logan International Airport, and will continue to create thousands of jobs for the seven billion dollars worth of private investment expected to occur in its wake.

February 16 - The Boston Globe

Atlanta Mayor Shirley Franklin has called for a sweeping update of the city's zoning ordinance in the face of the 'McMansionization' of some of the city's intown neighborhoods.

February 16 - Atlanta Journal Constitution

For the first time in decades Detroit has captured the largest increase in housing units for its seven county metro area, despite still large numbers of people leaving the city on an annual basis.

February 16 - The Detroit Free Press

BLOG POST

A few hours ago I got home from my first stint as a reviewer of student urban design proposals. That's right, kids: I went from consumer to teacher without ever having to be a producer. This afternoon I ducked out of work and went to the architecture and planning school at UC Berkeley to have a look, with some real professionals, at 18 class projects for a graduate-level landscape architecture class.<br /> <br /> Here's what happened: a few months ago I got a survey asking me how I felt about open space and parks in my neighborhood - West Berkeley, also known as Oceanview - and specifically how I felt about an alley that bisects my block and a couple blocks northward and southward.

February 16 - Anonymous

Carl Pope, Executive Director of the Sierra Club, comments on the Bush administration's plan to sell 300,000 acres of public land.

February 15 - Sierra Club