The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Carbon dioxide is one of the most widespread greenhouse gases produced by humans. Trees can absorb it, but release it when they die. Scientists are looking to build artificial trees to do the job permanently.

August 5 - National Geographic

A town in New York has been using satellite imagery from Google Earth to identify illegally-built pools.

August 5 - Associated Press

Traffic has become thick and widespread throughout Moscow, where long lines of cars harken back to the dying days of the Soviet era.

August 5 - The New Yorker

This feature from <em>Miller-McCune</em> looks at the debate over a dam near Stanford University, and whether it should be removed to restore the ecosystem the area once housed, or maintained to protect the ecosystem that it spawned.

August 5 - Miller-McCune

Three design firms offer new ideas for redesigning New Orleans' levees.

August 5 - Good

The Middle Eastern country of Qatar is bidding to play host to the 2022 World Cup. But some wonder whether the Cup might do better for the area if it were hosted by a regional coalition.

August 5 - The Huffington Post

BLOG POST

<p style="text-align: justify; margin: 0in 0in 10pt 0.5in" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="line-height: 115%; font-size: 12pt">A few years back, I was involved with helping a land owner master plan a 30-acre parcel in Las Vegas just off the Strip, near the MGM Grand Hotel.<span>  </span>The parcel was zoned for casino uses and also had potential for hotel, residential towers and other retail uses.<span>  </span>The land owner paid about $9 million for the underutilized and nearly vacant property and received minor residual income for lower intensity uses that were currently operating on the site.<span>  </span>Initially, the land owner tried to flip the land using a prestigious national real estate brokerage that marketed the property with a glossy aerial photograph, a large red b

August 5 - Rick Abelson

Using the 15-year-old transformation of Rockville, MD's mall-centered downtown to a mixed-use town square as an example, the real estate industry sees the suburban-to-urban lifestyle change spreading across much of the country.

August 4 - Reuters via ABC News/Money

Colorado gubernatorial candidate Dan Maes thinks so. He's telling voters that Mayor John Hickenlooper of Denver's sustainability initiatives aren't as harmless as you'd think. "That's exactly the attitude they want you to have," says Maes.

August 4 - Denver Post

The city of Baldwin Park, California -- purported home of the world's first drive-thru -- is temporarily banning any new construction of drive-thrus to try to combat obesity.

August 4 - The Christian Science Monitor

With the controversial mosque near Ground Zero clearing its last major legal hurdle, Mayor Bloomberg explains why the proposal should never have been opposed.

August 4 - The Huffington Post

Neighbors are in uproar over a 71-unit affordable housing project planned on a bus-turnaround in a residential area of San Francisco because it provides only 7 parking spaces. Is smart growth planning getting ahead of itself by becoming top-down?

August 4 - San Francisco Chronicle

BLOG POST

<p> &nbsp; </p> <p> <em>Burning rainforests. Smog alerts. Gridlocked cities. Seabirds caked with oil. That&#39;s how it was, ladies and gentlemen, as we entered the &#39;90s.</em> </p> <p> This list of environmental peril is familiar still today, although we can cite some success fighting the smog. In this case, the quote is from a TV reporter in 1984, a character in a Ray Bradbury story called &quot;The Toynbee Convector.&quot;  </p>

August 4 - Tim Halbur

Small and mid-sized cities in Canada are taking innovative steps to revitalize their downtowns, and lure businesses and entrepreneurs back.

August 4 - The Globe and Mail

The Albuquerque City Council and staff are drafting plans for Volcano Heights, Volcano Cliffs and Volcano Trails, three sites bordering Petroglyph National Monument. A simmering debate over open space conservation seems cooled by public process.

August 4 - Albuquerque Journal

To publicize an urban agriculture project in Middlesbrough, England, organizers threw a town meal for 8,000 people sharing the food grown by the gardens. The growing experiment was so popular that many locals don't want it to stop.

August 4 - The Guardian U.K.

Urban agriculture is becoming a well-known idea all around the world. Most of it is done at the small-scale, but there's still the idea of creating large skyscraper farms to feed our cities. <em>Smithsonian</em> takes a look at the idea.

August 4 - Smithsonian

<em>National Journal</em> asks its panel of transportation experts whether the car is really threatened by the rise in policy focus on pedestrians and cyclists.

August 4 - National Journal

With mounting traffic and road space at a premium, a Chinese company is proposing a unusual new idea for public transportation -- a bus/light rail system that cars can drive underneath.

August 3 - Geek.com

Cities make more sounds than just cars driving by or factories humming. Trevor Cox says we should embrace the subtle sounds of cities, and update our urban design to make sure we can.

August 3 - New Scientist