The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Wrecking crews continue to clear the old hutongs of Beijing, replacing them with modern streets and skyscrapers. Meanwhile, a handful of scavengers work to save pieces of history from the wreckage.

January 20 - The New York Times

Billions of North American birds are killed each year by flying into windows, studies suggest.

January 20 - The Winnipeg Free Press

In an effort to help officials and tourists in Washington D.C. deal with inauguration crowds, researchers at the University of Maryland have created a "four-dimensional" map that tracks traffic and road conditions in real time.

January 19 - NPR

Bicycle activists in Tel Aviv call for better infrastructure for bicyclists, skaters and pedestrians. "The central question is: Who is the city for - for the car or for the people?" says one.

January 19 - Haaretz

BLOG POST

<p> <br /> What can we as planners learn from president-elect Barak Obama&#39;s use of technology? <br /> <br /> President-elect Obama has been an early adopter of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gmP4nk0EOE">Web 2.0</a> technologies both in his campaign and the transition to the White House. It is likely that the Obama administration will continue to use Web 2.0 technologies to both engage the public in determining policies and to make government operations more transparent.<br /> <br /> As planners, there are a lot of great tools and techniques that we can use in the planning processes. Here are some of the tools that the Obama team have used that could be used in planning.<br />

January 19 - Chris Steins

One down, nine to go - that's how many hwy projects Gov. Schwarzenegger wants exempted from environmental review in order to be 'shovel ready' for the Obama stimulus. Hwy 50 was settled to the delight of enviros who negotiated a big win for transit.

January 19 - The Sacramento Bee

Mitch Albom writes about the ghosts of Detroit, and the undying belief that someday the city will come back.

January 19 - Sports Illustrated

Environmentalists worry that development pressures -- even for higher-density transit-friendly communities -- are eroding Florida's complex natural environments.

January 19 - AlterNet

The Department of the Interior has decided that a proposed wind farm to be built in the waters off Cape Cod poses 'no serious environmental threat.' Homeowners and boaters on the Cape, including Ted Kennedy, continue to fight it.

January 19 - The New York Times

The City of Shanghai has signed on to a proposal from the Walt Disney Company to build a Disneyland theme park in Mainland China.

January 19 - China Daily

America's foreclosure crisis is taking a heavy toll on communities by diminishing tax bases, lowering school enrollments, and contributing to rising crime.

January 19 - Color Lines

Recently approved plans to build a third runway at Heathrow International Airport mean the village of Sipson will be completely paved over. As a result, villagers have become activists, and they discuss their efforts in this video.

January 19 - Guardian

FEATURE

According to the Census Bureau, the United States will have over 400 million people by 2040. How will population growth – 100 million more Americans over the next three decades – impact the quality of your environment? The answer will depend on the choices we make as a society, says James A. LaGro, Jr.

January 19 - James A. LaGro Jr.

The town of Eden Prairie, Minnesota, has grand plans for a new, pedestrian-oriented downtown, but making this idea reality involves getting rid of one large and vocal neighbor: WalMart.

January 19 - Minneapolis-St. Paul Star-Tribune

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">Just getting started here, so I hope you’ll give me time to set my voice and you will tune in to provide a thoughtful dialogue. Like many of you, I am an urban planner with a distinguished background. My current emphasis is on new community development that will begin to emerge in the United States by 2013. Over the past two years, I was lucky enough to have a patron who sent me all over the world to see and record the best places, and meet with experts in energy efficiency, health care delivery, workplace transformation, learning and transportation demand reduction.

January 18 - Rick Abelson

Even as businesses across the spectrum are failing, the small alternative energy companies are seeing increased investment and a growing market.

January 18 - The Wall St. Journal

Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl is considering a plan to raise extra money for his city by leasing public parking spaces and garages to a private company.

January 18 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

When Borton and Welsh found 90 acres bordering a national forest near Whitehall, Montana, they parked a trailer, dug in, and began building Sage Mountain Center, a combination of cordwood and straw bale, powered off-grid by the sun and wind.

January 18 - Terrain.org: A Journal of the Built & Natural Environments

BLOG POST

<p> On Friday, in the first week of my second semester of planning graduate school, we did the hokey-pokey. We put our right foot in, put our right foot out, put our right foot in, and then we shook it all about. We turned ourselves around. That was what it was all about. </p> <p> The demonstration was all about pointing out common ground and how people were rooted in order to approach problem solving and conflict resolution. It sounds a little squishy, I know. But it got the point across, and more important, it introduced the dance to one international student who had never heard of the hokey-pokey. </p>

January 18 - Jeffrey Barg

The first draft of the house stimulus package has been released. This piece from <em>Stateline</em> looks at its major components.

January 18 - Stateline