The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Mera Rubell, one of America's premier art collectors, explains to Richard Florida why she loves collecting her art in Miami, and which is the best American City for artists.

October 5 - The Atlantic

In Washington, D.C., Capital Bikeshare just celebrated its "1st Birthday Bash" according to Coleen Gentles.

October 5 - City Parks Blog

With over 8 million people sharing the streets and sidewalks of New York City, there is bound to be a clash between transportation modes. Who's to blame? Lyndsey Scofield says that there is bad behavior on all sides.

October 5 - This Big City

Last week, California Governor Jerry Brown signed into a law two CEQA reform bills that will expedite the court review process for some job-creating projects. Joel R. Reynolds editorializes on the move's risk to the basic principles of CEQA.

October 5 - The Sacramento Bee

In this article and accompanying video, architecture critic Michael Kimmelman and Planning Commissioner Amanda Burden tour the Melrose section of the South Bronx. Along the way, affordability and density are apparent hallmarks of the undertaking.

October 5 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Garamond, serif">In many ways, the Great Recession has been a frightening time for planners. As development slowed, the flow of applications submitted for new development slowed from its torrent at the height of the housing boom to the trickle it is today.<span>  </span>With the decline in applications came a decline in workload for public-sector planners working in current planning roles and a decline in revenue for the jurisdictions that employed them.<span>  </span>The end result was hundreds of planners being laid off, and private-sector planning firms competing with one another for ever-decreasing shares of work from public- and private-sector clients.</span> </p>

October 4 - Justin Steinmann

The Dubai Executive Council has approved the Dubai Urban Development Master Plan 2020, and will establish a 'Supreme Urban Planning Council,' to streamline the process.

October 4 - Constuction Week

BLOG POST

<p> In a <a href="/node/51680">recent post</a>, Todd Litman criticized the Texas Transportation Institute&#39;s <a href="http://mobility.tamu.edu/ums/">Urban Mobility Report</a>.  In this post, I&#39;d like to do something a little different: assume that TTI&#39;s congestion estimates are more or less reliable, and try to learn something from them.  So here are a few observations: </p>

October 4 - Michael Lewyn

Every year the APA reveals a list of great public spaces in America. Bicentennial Capitol Mall Park in Tennessee is just one of they have chosen. Other places include Milwaukee RiverWalk in Wisconsin and Monument Circle in Indiana.

October 4 - American Planning Association

Andres Sevstuk, lecturer at MIT and head of the City Form Research Group describes how the new Urban Network Analysis toolbox is "taking a much more rigorous approach to look at the work of urban design."

October 4 - The Boston Globe

A crosswalk in Little Rock, Arkansas is forbidden to pedestrians from 6am to 6pm every day. Tim McKuin asks, what's the deal?

October 4 - Move Arkansas

In a rather remarkable application of new, carbon-free renewable power to obtain additional oil from old wells, solar thermal technology involving mirrors placed above an oil field in Coalinga, CA will create steam to inject into the wells.

October 4 - Reuters via Los Angeles Times - Business

The French city of Nantes was for generations an industrial shipbuilding center, but that business gasped its last breath in 1987. City leaders began working then to reimagine the city, and part of that visions is, yes, a mechanical elephant.

October 4 - The New York Times

Steven Huff, who is chairman of a concrete company, is building a 13 bedroom, 14 bath home in Highlandville, Missouri out of his company's energy-efficient concrete. When built, it will be one of the largest homes in the U.S.

October 4 - The Kansas City Star

In a popular new development in Brooklyn built near transit, 50% of parking spaces are going unused. Why are parking requirements so overspec'ed?, asks Jeremy Smerd.

October 4 - Crain's

A group of local artists in Omaha, Nebraska are putting their mark on old grain elevators located right in the heart of the city, making the art pieces an Omaha fixture.

October 4 - WebUrbanist

In an obviously difficult market for new housing, Cross Creek Ranch is standing out from the pack with a master-planned community that restores a degraded dirt parcel to a native landscape.

October 4 - Builder Magazine

Allison Arieff says it is high time that the "dumb box" that makes up the majority of suburban housing be rethought to meet the needs of a new generation, presenting a small handful of homebuilders that are making an effort.

October 3 - The New York Times

Preservationists are all about preserving our past. Urbanists are all about harvesting lessons from what the preservationists fight for -- to create better places in the future. Seems like these two groups would get along quite well. But no.

October 3 - PlaceShakers

Thanks to massive projects fuelled by developers rather than retailers, and official efforts to spur a consumer economy, China is becoming home to massive, deserted malls.

October 3 - The Globe and Mail