The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

For years, absentee owners of Philadelphia eyesores avoided penalties from Licenses and Inspections, often because citations and warnings were sent to vacant properties. Now, commissioner Fran Burns can summon those owners back to the city.

October 27 - Philadelphia Daily News

The City of Rio de Janeiro announced the winner of its design contest for the 2016 Olympic Park. Contestants also designed a master-planned, mixed-use neighborhood to take over the space post-Olympics.

October 27 - 2016 Olympic Park Competition

Natalia Echeverri profiles Asheville, NC, a town that that has transformed itself into a grassroots-oriented, local creative hub. One highlight? A recycled "design-build" studio constructed in 10 weeks.

October 27 - POLIS

The New York City Department of City Planning wants to place maximums in the Manhattan core, but there's just one problem: its own two-year-old parking study. Noah Kazis reports on the faulty arguments against reform.

October 27 - Streetsblog New York City

BLOG POST

<p style="margin-top: 6pt" class="MsoPlainText"> <span>Let me tell you a scary story that you can use to frighten fellow planners at next week’s Halloween party. It’s not just fun and games – this story is true and may cause nightmares.</span> </p>

October 27 - Todd Litman

BLOG POST

October 26 - Ki Kim

Coachella Valley is home to agriculture, music festivals, and impoverished residents living in shanty mobile homes. Drinkable water, reliable electricity, basic sanitation, and clean air are scarce, says California Watch.

October 26 - California Watch

Zipcar is a car sharing service based in Cambridge, Mass. The program allows you access to a car for either several hours or the whole day. Illinois contracted with the company giving its state employees access to nearly 500 vehicles.

October 26 - Chicago Tribune

Pollution has caused the Anacostia River to suffer, writes Ryan Donahue, and efforts to revitalize the area were put on hold just as the recession began. Since then, the District has implemented programs to help restore this neglected area.

October 26 - City Parks Blog

In its 5th year, the Solar Decathlon had submissions from 20 different countries and from schools like SCI-Arc/Caltech's and Appalachian State University, writes Diana Budds for Dwell.

October 26 - Dwell

The government plans to build 24 industrial cities that stretch from New Delhi to Mumbai for a corridor bigger in land size than Japan, write Matthias Williams and Lyndee Prickitt for Reuters.

October 26 - Reuters

The implosion of the Pruitt-Igoe housing projects is recognized as the moment when modernism died. Sam Jacob is taking university students to the site to observe what has become of the location.

October 26 - Strange Harvest

"Carjacked" author Anne Lutz Fernandez says Time's tearful coverage of the traffic deaths of a 72-year-married Iowa couple fails to recognize the true problem: that Americans are persuaded that driving = living.

October 26 - Streetsblog Capitol Hill

Fort McMurray is one of Canada's fastest-growing, wealthiest and most expensive cities...with no downtown.

October 26 - The Globe and Mail

Guangzhou, China's public transit network barely existed back in the late 1980s, when the Guangzhou Metro Corporation (GMC) was created to oversee its creation. Today they employ over 17,000 people and in 2010 GMC carried 1.18 billion passengers.

October 26 - City Mayors

Tom Angotti believes that community participation and neighborhood-level planning are key to a wider network of bike infrastructure in New York City.

October 26 - Gotham Gazette

Only 7 short years ago, planners in the Phoenix/Tuscon area were envisioning a region of 10 million people. Today they're scaling back the predictions, but still have hope for a recovery.

October 25 - The Arizona Daily Star

Danish Architect Bjarke Ingels discusses his new approach of "hedonistic sustainability... which improves the quality of life," as well as other ideas he often features in various projects.

October 25 - THE DIRT

Greenwich Village and Queens subway stations have had their trash bins removed for the past two weeks. This counterintuitive plan was initiated 3 months ago by officials due to an "epidemic of unsightliness and malodor," writes Michael Grynbaum.

October 25 - The New York Times

In this Washington Post blog, Brad Plumer writes on a New American Foundation report on rising gas prices and their disproportionate impact on the poor and middle class. Public policies intended to reduce fuel consumption, however, benefit the rich.

October 25 - The Washington Post - Blogs