The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Corporate Knights magazine has released its -- new and improved -- annual ranking of sustainable cities in Canada.

March 8 - Corporate Knights

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<span><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman"> </span></span><span><span style="font-size: small"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman">As the economy continues to lumber through the most protracted period of recession since the early 1980s, the financial sector has received the brunt of the blame. It’s been easy for the planning profession to distance themselves from what seem at first to be macroeconomic trends. That view, however, is becoming increasingly difficult to uphold.

March 7 - Samuel Staley

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Finding a first full-time “real” job in planning seems a daunting task at present. However, cities are growing, infrastructure is being funded, and there will be jobs for planners. The following tips can help one navigate the market. <p class="MsoNormal"> <em>Be prepared to go to Kansas</em>. By this I mean that there are certain places much loved by young planners—New York, Boston, San Francisco—and these are not the best places to start looking for early planning jobs. Sure they have them. For low pay. Where you’ll find yourself at the very bottom of the totem pole with years of photocopying ahead of you before you make it to the zoning counter.

March 7 - Ann Forsyth

A study released last week by NAIOP, the Commercial Real Estate Development Association, concluded that green standards were not financially feasible for Class A office buildings. Not so, experts say.

March 7 - CoStar Group News

Jay Walljasper writes that bike-sharing programs are transforming life in European cities from Oslo to Rome, Barcelona to Vienna, and giving visitors a great new way to sightsee.

March 7 - NWA Traveler

At a recent event in Los Angeles, Cecilia Estolano, CEO of the Community Redevelopment Agency of the City of Los Angeles, presented her vision for the Downtown of the future in one of the country's most notoriously diffuse urban centers.

March 7 - The Planning Report

The state of Michigan is getting ready to institute an emergency manager to effectively take over the financial operations of the auto industry city of Pontiac, which has struggled economically for more than a decade.

March 7 - The New York Times

According to the Pew Research Center, suburban dwellers are the most content with where they live, despite reports that also find that suburbs are not regarded the most ideal places to live.

March 7 - Pew Research Center

An new exhibition in Toronto called Carrot City: Designing for Urban Agriculture includes a concept for Pig City, a high-rise swine farm.

March 6 - The Toronto Star

The Heritage Foundation decries Obama's anti-sprawl policies, claiming that smart growth strategies have only managed to raise housing prices around the country.

March 6 - The Heritage Foundation

Atlantic City's convention center features the largest solar panel array in the United States.

March 6 - CNN

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<p> <span style="font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'"><span style="font-size: small">Having become something of a junkie who overdoses on political and economic news, it is only natural that I try to help justify that time investment by scouring the news for tidbits that have professional relevance.<span>  </span>Just this past week several things have come across my monitor that have made me reflect.<span>  </span></span></span> </p>

March 6 - Steven Polzin

A quarry in San Diego is on a path towards conversion into a $1.5 billion mixed-use housing and retail project, one many thought unlikely in today's tight market.

March 6 - The New York Times

No one expects the $8 billion to build any one single high-speed-rail system in the U.S. But the U.S., with its vast distances and low gas prices, is not Europe or Asia, and some question whether the investment will produce any substantial results.

March 6 - The Boston Globe

The former GM auto industry town of Anderson, Indiana, which struggled as factories closed, is experiencing rebirth as a new industry plans to move in.

March 6 - The New York Times

New data show that in 2008 traffic congestion in the nation's cities declined by 30 percent, the result not of new roads or transit, but of modest declines in VMT.

March 6 - CEOs For Cities

About one out of every five homes in America is worth less than what is still owed on its mortgage. The highest rates of negative equity are in Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, Florida and California.

March 6 - Time

As air travel security tightens and high speed rail expands, getting in and around Spain is becoming easier on the rails than in the sky.

March 6 - NPR

The Obama Administration has outlined plans to assist nearly 4 million homeowners in danger of foreclosure. The total cost to taxpayers runs close to $75 billion.

March 6 - The New York Times

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<p> Once again, US Air (a.k.a. <a href="http://tinyurl.com/dcedrj" target="_blank" title="US SCARE">US-SCARE</a>) has made my life difficult. I was hoping to fly back from Myrtle Beach, SC to Denver yesterday and they cancelled my flight (Myrtle Beach is where the <a href="http://www.csc.noaa.gov/geotools/" target="_blank" title="GeoTools Conferencce">GeoTools</a> conference was and a meeting of the Ecosystem Based Management Tools <a href="http://www.ebmtools.org/" target="_blank" title="EBM Tools Network">Network</a>).  <br />

March 6 - Ken Snyder