The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Irmak Turan discusses agriculture's place in the city, as seen by a handful of Brooklyn activists. From stormwater absorption to community ties, these farms provide more than just fresh food for earthy hipsters.

April 4 - Urban Omnibus

Eric Moskowitz reports on the results of a recent Boston Globe pool which shows Massachusetts voters support a publicly financed bailout of the state's cash-strapped transit agency.

April 4 - The Boston Globe

The era of big-box retail dominance is coming to an end. That's the opinion of David Welch, Chris Burritt and Lauren Coleman-Lochner, writing in <em>Bloomberg</em> on the occasion of Best Buy's recent announcement that it is closing 50 big stores.

April 4 - Bloomberg

For the latest in a series on the laws that shaped Los Angeles, KCET's Jeremy Rosenberg examines 1999's Adaptive Reuse Ordinance, which made possible downtown's wave of condo conversion projects.

April 4 - KCET Departures

Emily Badger profiles a new web-based information resource on all things BRT, launched this week by EMBARQ, with the International Energy Agency and the Bus Rapid Transit Centre of Excellence.

April 4 - The Atlantic Cities

Depending on your outlook, the smart home of the future may be an essential caregiver (or an annoying nudge) explains Emily Badger, who explores the new technology giving homes the ability to reason what’s going on inside them.

April 3 - The Atlantic Cities

Elizabeth Evitts Dickinson reports on Open Walls Baltimore, the city’s first officially sanctioned street art exhibition, which seeks to bring new life to a transitional neighborhood, and presents a dilemma for its curator.

April 3 - Grist

Molly Heintz reports on the recent developments (or lack thereof) in the long and controversial saga centered around the future of the historic Domino Sugar refinery along Brooklyn's East River waterfront.

April 3 - The Architect's Newspaper

In this excerpt from her new book, "Before the Lights Go Out" author Maggie Koerth-Baker warns of the converging crises of peak oil and climate change on suburban areas.

April 3 - Scientific American

Census data reveals that California is the most urbanized state, with the most dense urban areas. But in California, sprawl, density, crowding, and urbanism are not always what they seem. Fortunately, a new law may help planners make sense of it all.

April 3 - California Planning & Development Report

Accompanied by images of a partially demolished building, P.J. Lassek reports on Tulsa's conflict between encouraging development and providing parking amenities.

April 3 - Tulsa World

JoAnn Greco explores Tel Aviv's trove of neglected Bauhaus treasures, which date to the growth of the brand-new Israeli city as a haven for Jews fleeing Nazi Germany.

April 3 - The Washington Post

On the San Francisco Municipal Transit Agency's (MUNI) centennial birthday, Zusha Elinson reports on the sad fact that service is slower than it was when it began 100 years ago.

April 3 - The New York Times

Jay Walljasper chronicles the growing influence of the bicycle lobby, and their persuasive argument that policies that are good for bicyclists actually benefit everyone.

April 3 - Shareable

Ryan Holeywell and Daniel Lippman evaluate the country's five biggest on-going infrastructure projects, and the five biggest ones in jeopardy. See if your region's project made the cut.

April 3 - Governing

The first ever World Happiness Report, published by Columbia University's Earth Institute, reflects a new worldwide demand for more attention to happiness and absence of misery as criteria for government policy.

April 2 - The Earth Institute

Ryan Sager looks at the results of two recent studies that explore the ways in which cities, commonly lauded as bastions of diversity, actually incubate groupthink.

April 2 - The Wall Street Journal

Knowing that a $100 billion project stood a poor chance of passing muster in a budget-conscious state legislature, Gov. Jerry Brown shaved off $30 billion by using a "blended rail" strategy in the Bay Area and South Coast, i.e. sharing tracks.

April 2 - The Sacramento Bee - Transportation

John Handley looks at the popularity of New Urbanism over the past two decades and asks whether traditional neighborhood design will continue to flourish in the 21st century, as the housing market rebounds.

April 2 - Chicago Tribune

With mockumentary-style coverage, NPR's John Burnett imagines the trials of a state's secession.

April 2 - NPR