The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Amid talk of downsizing and abandonment, a new surge of young investors has been moving into Detroit and revitalizing its economy.

January 11 - The Detroit Free Press

Wal-Mart has started a major public relations effort to try to get the public behind plans to open several of its big box retail stores in New York City.

January 11 - The New York Times

Planetizen's Nate Berg posits that Burning Man, the yearly freak festival in the Nevada desert, has become "a highly planned, intricately organized and fully functioning city" of 50,000 people.

January 10 - Places Journal

Minimalism, long declared dead, rises from the grave to lumber on, writes Sam Jacob. Can it be stopped?

January 10 - Strange Harvest

A new documentary promises to reveal the stories of the people who lived in the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing complex. The filmmakers promise to "implode myths" about this symbol of failed urban renewal policy.

January 10 - pruitt-igoe.com

Stephen L. Cowell, an energy efficiency expert, says that while other careers are sputtering the business of creating savings by reducing energy consumption is going gangbusters.

January 10 - Renewable Energy World

FEATURE

The state of Detroit is alarming, particularly in its continued dependence on cars, but there is hope that the city could reinvent itself as an ecological metropolis, says Jeffrey Kenworthy of the Curtin University of Technology.

January 10 - Jeff Kenworthy

Lawrence Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Square ballooned over the years to 4 lanes. Putting the street on a "road diet" will make it friendlier to pedestrians.

January 10 - The Chicago Tribune

Representative Earl Blumenauer, well-known as a supporter of progressive transportation policies, says that the Republican majority in the House is up to "budget gimmickry that undermines our economy and the safety of our communities."

January 10 - The Infrastructurist

Just as failing industries marked the decline of the Midwest after WWII (hence the name 'Rust Belt'), the new declining cities will be denoted by their percentage of foreclosures, found particularly in California, the Southwest, and Florida.

January 10 - International Business Times

Sounding very much like the new OH and WI Republican governors, a key state Republican legislator wants to avoid the ongoing state subsidy for Iowa City to Chicago trains. At stake is $230 million in a Federal rail grant to build 110 mph trains.

January 10 - Des Moines Register

...and it could be keeping you warm. Whereas diesel from algae may be a bust, insulation from fungus could be coming soon to a home near you.

January 10 - BuildingGreen.com

A New York man who has watched a Bronx neighborhood fall into despair over decades is hoping to help un-blight the troubled area.

January 10 - The New York Times

China is building millions of housing units. But is the country building neighborhoods?

January 9 - The Wall Street Journal

Contracts have been signed on a tunnel project to replace the earthquake-damaged Alaskan Way Viaduct in Seattle. But opponents are still trying to stop the project.

January 9 - The Seattle Times

Mayors of some of the biggest cities in the U.S. talk about what makes a city smart, and how cities can become smarter.

January 9 - Time

A floating city has been proposed to help ease some of the problems being faced by earthquake-damaged Haiti. But is this the answer the struggling country needs?

January 9 - The City Fix

Officials in St. Louis are looking to update the county's zoning codes to allow denser housing, and a greater mix of land uses.

January 9 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

<em>Fast Company</em> runs down a list of the "smartest" cities in the world. First place goes to Songdo City, in South Korea.

January 8 - Fast Company

Anthony Flint offers this list of the top ten reasons to be nice to pedestrians in 2011.

January 8 - The Boston Globe