The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

A video interview with Ed Blakely, former New Orleans recovery czar, reveals some tensions with the city, its officials, and its people that hindered the recovery process.

November 13 - New Orleans Times-Picayune

Urban time shares get a boost as Hilton gets in on the action. A new NYC property is gaining attention and, surprisingly enough, selling units.

November 13 - The New York Times

The greatest threat to Brazil's Amazon Rain Forest is not just farming or logging, but the road construction that makes both possible, writes Stephanie Brault.

November 13 - Council on Hemispheric Affairs

BLOG POST

<p> During his dramatic presentation <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/09/04/16/a-vision-for-high-speed-rail/">last April</a>, President Barack Obama laid out a bold vision for high speed rail in America. Wielding a stylish red, white, and blue map (below) he presented the proposed corridors for new high speed trains. (Similar, if not identical, to plans long sitting on the shelf at the Federal Railway Administration.) He asked Americans to &quot;Imagine whisking through towns at speeds over 100 miles an hour, walking only a few steps to public transportation, and ending up just blocks from your destination.&quot; In reality limited funds, our dysfunctional planning processes, and the historical lack of investment in rail will mean the U.S. will most likely end up with a diverse collection of regional rail systems that may not go that fast.

November 13 - Robert Goodspeed

On the heels of the fatal bridge collapse in Minnesota, last year, lawmakers allotted just 11 percent of transportation spending to bridge repair.

November 13 - Streetsblog Los Angeles

An architect in Berlin has proposed replacing the city's now-unused Tempelhof airport with a giant man-made mountain, dubbed The Berg.

November 13 - The Architect's Journal

Rep. Pete DeFazio's plan to close the nation's transportation funding gap with a tax on oil futures is meeting fierce opposition.

November 13 - Streetsblog Los Angeles

The New England Economic partnership warns that Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick's optimism about green jobs may be unrealistic.

November 13 - The Boston Herald

The Federal Housing Administration said today that its reserves are dwindling because of risky loans they insured and the drop in home prices.

November 13 - The New York Times

Many in Sacramento and California's Central Valley are concerned that they aren't being prioritized in the process to get high-speed rail moving.

November 12 - Sacramento News & Review

Parking by the Giants Stadium costs $1 less an hour than before the pilot program began, but on 'game days', the rate shoots up four-fold. Parking rates are not set daily but hourly by time of day, and have become quite profitable.

November 12 - San Francisco Examiner

NYC has purchased 7 acres of Coney Island from a developer, with the hopes of breathing new life into the People's Playground.

November 12 - The New York Times

Developers and locals in Las Vegas are pinning hopes onto the new CityCenter development to bring walkability to the desert city.

November 12 - MSNBC

BLOG POST

<p> You don&#39;t know how you get there, but you&#39;re there. And you can&#39;t leave. You&#39;re a prisoner among hundreds of other prisoners, but you&#39;re the only one who knows it. Or at least you think you know it. Are you really still a prisoner if you forget you&#39;re being held against your will? Existentialism aside, what if it&#39;s your environment that&#39;s taking away your sense of individualism? <br /> <br />

November 12 - Nate Berg

An argument in a New York City bar elevated to violence recently, when a male Columbia University planning professor punched a woman in the face.

November 12 - The New York Times

FEATURE

November 12 - Martha Frish

A former Beirut resident returns to the Lebanese city to find a vibrant and emerging tourist destination, but with many of the quirks of a developing country.

November 12 - The Guardian

New York City's Gowanus Canal has been heavily polluted for years. Mayor Bloomberg said the cleanup would happen, but it never did. Now the EPA is calling the troubled waterway a Superfund site and the city is kickstarting action.

November 12 - The Architect's Newspaper

Two sets of graphs from show demographic trends in India that are likely to create a heavily urbanized country. But they aren't building the infrastructure to back up the growth, according to Thomas Crampton.

November 12 - Thomas Crampton

Urban designers Terri Chiao and Deborah Grossberg Katz take on the problem of homelessness in New York proactively, rather than waiting for RFPs to come in.

November 12 - Urban Omnibus