The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

FEATURE

Leveraging the Wisdom of Crowds through Participatory Platforms

New technologies are providing participatory platforms that allow individuals to share their ideas, interact with other's ideas, and work towards collaborative solutions to resolve problems or take advantage of opportunities. Kevin C. Desouza, PhD offers five guidelines to ensure that the use of such emerging technologies are maximized by practitioners.

March 5 - Kevin C. Desouza

A Paean For Rural America and Its Working Landscape

Lee Epstein and Kaid Benfield pen a post on the importance of working rural landscapes to the sustainability agenda, which seems to be increasingly overlooked by smart growth advocates.

March 5 - Switchboard

Chicago Moves to Clean Its Waterways

Despite decades of "steady improvement", Chicago is still home to some of the dirtiest waterways in the country. Now after years of obfuscation, the city's Metropolitan Water Reclamation District is finally moving forward with cleanup plans.

March 5 - Chicago Tribune

Learn To Love The Bus

It may not be sexy and it may not be fast, but the time has come to acknowledge the key role that the much maligned form of public transit will have in solving cities’ mobility woes, writes Will Doig.

March 5 - Salon.com

Where It Pays To Be A Woman

To mark the upcoming anniversary of International Women's Day, Sarah Morrison investigates the best and worst places around the world to be a woman.

March 5 - The Independent


Arrival of Big Boxes Serves As Point of Pride in Detroit

Tanveer Ali sees Detroit, where the impending arrival of retail behemoths has been greeted with enthusiasm by a city in desperate need of jobs and retail outlets, as an interesting test case for theories about the economic value of big-box stores

March 5 - Good

Will St. Louis Become the Next City to Demolish Its Elevated Urban Highway?

Alex Ihnen writes about the fast moving proposal to convert 1-mile of the elevated I-70 highway separating downtown St. Louis from its historic riverfront.

March 5 - nextSTL.com


Investment in Smarter Cities Begins to Pay Dividends

Pete Swabey tells the tale of the development of smart city technology by IBM and Cisco, which has now reached a point of maturation in which significant lessons, economic opportunities, and future applications can be discerned.

March 5 - Information Age

Tactical Urbanism Comes of Age

Nate Berg reports on the recent release of the "official" guide to tactical urbanism, <em>Tactical Urbanism 2: Short-Term Action, Long Term Change</em>, authored by Mike Lydon.

March 5 - The Atlantic Cities

Appreciating The Legacy Of Planning Pioneer Charles Haar

Comprehensive planning is customary in a great many American cities these days, but it wasn't long ago that the concept was foreign to most planners. Attorney and scholar Charles M. Haar was one of the figures who revolutionized the field.

March 5 - California Planning & Development Report

What is Manhattan's Carrying Capacity?

NYT reporter Amy O'Leary observes Manhattan's ubiquitous construction while suffering through overcrowded sidewalks, stores, and subway trains, and wonders just how many more people the crowded borough can absorb.

March 5 - The New York Times - Real Estate

Reporting on the State of Architectural Criticism

A distinguished panel of architectural critics gathered this past week at the Center for Architecture, in New York, to discuss “Architectural Criticism Today.” Julie V. Iovine presents some choice excerpts from the two-hour conversation.

March 4 - The Architect's Newspaper

Why the "Other" Housing Market is Booming

With the consistent news about declining home values and stagnating sales, its easy to forget that, in effect, there are two housing markets in the U.S. - those for owners and those for renters. Guess which one is booming.

March 4 - Slate

In the Inevitable World of the Self-Driving Car, How Will An Intersection Work?

Yes, the subject may seem a little dry at first, but have a look at the intersection modeling shown in Emily Badger's recent article to see what continuously flowing traffic looks like at an intersection. A brave new world indeed.

March 4 - The Atlantic Cities

Wind Power Projects Lift Off in NYC

After not partaking heavily in wind power, New York is advancing plans to generate wind power on several fronts, reports Mireya Navarro.

March 4 - The New York Times

Driving out one Nuisance With Another

The American Society of Landscape Architects examines the implications of squeezing teens out of the public sphere.

March 4 - THE DIRT

New Funding is Needed as the Highway Trust Fund Nears Empty

As the Highway Trust Fund goes bankrupt, the editors of <em>Bloomberg</em> suggest new ways to finance transportation infrastructure that integrates new technology, increasing public-private associations and loosening the funding framework itself.

March 3 - Bloomberg

Framing California's Water Infrastructure Challenges

Jeff Kightlinger of the Metropolitan Water District and Phil Isenberg of the Delta Stewardship Council illustrate the state of California's water delivery system today. As population grows and infrastructure ages, an onerous task lies ahead.

March 3 - The Planning Report

Parsing China's Reaction To Its Pritzker Prize-Winning Architect

There's no doubt that the awarding of the Pritzker Prize this week to Chinese architect Wang Shu was based as much on its symbolism as for personal achievement. Jiayang Fan looks at what the announcement's reception in China has been.

March 3 - The New Yorker

America's Top Five Real Estate Markets

Writing for <em>Urban Land</em>, Trisha Riggs looks at the country's top markets for real estate based on ULI's <em>Emerging Trends</em> Americas report.

March 3 - Urban Land

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