The Daily Source of Urban Planning News
Personal Emission Cards
Brits consider radical plan to measure personal emissions.
Moosehead Lake Development To Boost Local Economy
A newly released study finds that a resort development would bring much-needed tax revenue and economic growth to four Maine counties.
A Million-year Health Standard
The EPA creates a million-year health standard for Yucca Mountain dump.
Bush's Energy Bill Is A Missed Opportunity
President Bush's energy bill is a "feeble initiative" that will not solve the nation's enormous energy problems writes Joe Conason.
Chernobyl: Evolution On Steroids
Nineteen years after the radioactive explosion in Chernobyl, the ecosystem has returned, and with greater biodiversity than before.
Bush Signs Huge Transportation Bill
President Bush says the $286.4 billion transportation measure will spur the economy.
Is Sydney Australia's Answer To Los Angeles?
Is Australia's capital on its way to becoming an urban sprawl nightmare comparable to Los Angeles?
President Bush Signs Energy Bill
President Bush acknowledged that the major overhaul of the nation's energy policy may not bring down high gasoline prices immediately.
Land Of The Mega Garage
Many homeowners in the midwest are "supersizing" their garages.
Gentrification In North Philadelphia
Amid the city's development boom, residents and local groups in one neighborhood wrangle with developers, the city and each other.
Law, Endowments And Property Rights
Ross Levin explains what accounts for differences in protection of property rights across different societies.
Massachusetts Seeks To Limit Eminent Domain
Kelo vs. New London continues to raise questions, as state and local officials in the Commonwealth discuss its implications.
Economic Development From A Regional Perspective
Richard Hollingsworth, director of a economic development organization, discusses the value of regional planning.
Living At The Mall
Condos and loft apartments are going up at retail meccas around the Phoenix area.
Housing Prices Outstripping Salaries
A new study shows that a great many working class Americans are unable to purchase their own homes.
America's Crumbling Infrastructure -- And How To Fix It
An interview with president of the American Society of Civil Engineers on how to get our public works back in shape.
Vulgaria: The Re-Enchantment Of Suburbia
Paul Knox explores Vulgaria: the emblematic cultural landscapes of contemporary American suburbia.
Rebuilding Neighborhoods From The Ground Up
Pennsylvania's new BluePrint Communities program gives community groups the resources to manage redevelopment.
Remembering The Watts Riots
Mystery writer Walter Mosley reminds Angelinos that on the 40th anniversary of the Watts Riots, rage still smolders in the city.
BLOG POST
History of Traffic
Seriously supergood article on the history and technology of traffic <a href="http://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/17/blocking.php">here</a>, at Cabinet magazine. <img src='http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//tower.jpg' alt='' width="200" align="right"/>How it works, what the terminology means, and how it's (not) controlled. Don't hate me for quoting so much, but it's a really wonderful piece:<br /> <br /> <blockquote>In 1930, Philadelphia put the "master controller" (both a device and a person) of its flexible-progressive signal system in the basement of its City Hall; and the groundbreaking Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control (ATSAC) center, created for traffic management during the 1984 Olympics, operates four floors below City Hall in Los Angeles.<br /> <br /> Once envied for its vast, efficient freeway system, Los Angeles eventually became the smoggy symbol of destructive automobile dependence and gridlock. Both images, however, are outdated. With one of the earliest and now most extensive traffic management systems, L.A. has become paradigmatic for "intelligent" urban traffic control worldwide. The Los Angeles district of the California Department of Transportation (CALTRANS) operates a traffic management center (TMC) in a fortified building, blocks away from the ATSAC center. ATSAC & CALTRANS combine with the Los Angeles County Public Works TMC to handle traffic flow throughout the region.<br /> <br /> Examining Los Angeles further as a case study in both traffic and traffic management, we find a feedback loop between the environment and the system: the environment can be described as the collective movement of vehicles across the urban grid; the system is the infrastructure designed to measure, monitor, and control the environment. More specifically, the system in Los Angeles has two primary realms: the physical and the virtual.<br /> <br /> In the physical realm, over 50,000 buried loop detectors, the insulated wire loops that passively detect subtle magnetic field changes from vehicles, combine with over 700 weatherproofed video cameras, some of which are remotely controlled to pan and zoom, to monitor and control traffic flow. Loops automatically trigger software in switching boxes linked to intersection signals but also send data to TMCs that allow traffic engineers to monitor flow patterns and adjust timings remotely. A simple click of a mouse button can start or stop the flow of movement on the grid.<br /> <br /> [snips]<br /> <br /> When traffic incidents occur, the system acknowledges and responds in various ways depending on the technological level of the area's infrastructure. In the case of most freeways or major intersections in the city itself, cameras are the first observers, recording the collision or obstruction and the immediate effect on the surrounding flow. An extreme incident is known as a Sig-Alert and is defined by the California Highway Patrol as "any unplanned event that causes the closing of one lane of traffic for 30 minutes or more, as opposed to a planned event like road construction, which is planned separately," and is named after Loyd C. "Sig" Sigmon. Mr. Sigmon developed a customized radio receiver and tape recorder that would detect a particular tone and record the bulletin, providing radio announcers with an analogue database of recent traffic incidents. This relieved dispatch from answering phone calls from the press. The first use of this device was in 1955 when doctors and nurses were requested to respond to a train derailment outside the Los Angeles Union Station. A traffic jam was the unintended result. It's oddly appropriate that Mr. Sigmon was to pass away only days before President ReaganÃs postmortem journey from a Santa Monica funeral home to Simi Valley, north of Los Angeles, shutting down miles of the busiest stretch of freeway in the country (the 405), causing multiple Sig-Alerts in surrounding areas.</blockquote>
City of Thousand Oaks
City of Wisconsin Rapids
Harvard University Graduate School of Design
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.
