The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

A top Parisian official calls SUVs polluting "caricature of a car" unsuited to Paris' city life.

June 11 - Reuters

BLOG POST

San Francisco - The current issue of <em>Science</em> has an interesting Policy Forum laying out some of the challenges of building in earthquake country (fulltext <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/304/5677/1604">here</a>; pdf <a href="http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/304/5677/1604">here</a>). The salient point:<br /> <br /> <blockquote>...basic data and analysis are lacking for how buildings and structures perform under the extreme loads produced by earthquakes. Some experts think structural damage prediction models are based largely on opinion. Application of laboratory data is difficult because of soil- structure interactions and difficulties simulating excitations at high frequencies. These limitations are increasingly important as the postearthquake performance goal for critical buildings moves toward immediate occupancy and functionality.</blockquote>

June 10 - Anonymous

A look at one of India's great rivers before a huge dam project changes it for ever.

June 10 - Grist Magazine

Boston is the first city to plan random searches of commuters, spurring questions over civil liberties.

June 10 - The Christian Science Monitor

Claiming that water problems won't slow growth, Sin City bets on expansion over sustainability. Some experts think the city will come up snake-eyes.

June 10 - Las Vegas Sun

The proposed McCain-Lieberman Climate Stewardship Act offers economic incentives to reduce emissions through a market-based system.

June 10 - Moving Ideas

Long-time residents of Yesler Terrace public housing are trying to keep their homes in one of America's most expensive downtowns.

June 10 - The Seattle Times

There's a common perception that Paris is an untouchable ideal, too lofty for other cities to absorb its lessons. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

June 10 - Project For Public Spaces

New housing projects in Wisconsin's capital must include affordable units.

June 10 - Madison.com

Four candidates are competing for an unusual seat designated for a homeless representative on the Downtown Los Angeles Neighborhood Council.

June 10 - The Los Angeles Times

Why are inner city residents paying more for groceries?

June 10 - The Chicago Tribune

Longtime urban policy scholar, Alan Altshuler, is appointed to serve as acting dean of the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University.

June 10 - Harvard Crimson

Columbia professor Mindy Thompson Fullilove explores the painful results of post-World War II projects on African-Americans.

June 10 - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

BLOG POST

Kevin Leeson, Special Projects Coordinator and Chris Alvarado, Associate Senior Planner, setup and run the <a href="http://planning.co.cuyahoga.oh.us/blog/">Cuyahoga County Planning Commission Weblog</a>. As far as I know, this is the first public-sector planning blog in existence.<br /> <br /> The purpose of the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission Weblog primarily is to act as a news gathering and dissemination resource for the Greater Cleveland and Cuyahoga County planning community, which includes 59 communities, cities, villages and townships.

June 9 - Chris Steins

Storage condos are seen as a new way to "atttack suburban clutter".

June 9 - St. Paul Pioneer Press

Faced with a mounting lack of fresh water, England thinks reverse-osmosis could provide for its inevitable growth and life-style changes.

June 9 - BBC News

When money ran out nearly 80 years ago, this almost-complete subway was abandoned. Today it is a legend.

June 9 - National Public Radio

BLOG POST

<a href="http://www.visitorville.com/">VisitorVille</a> is a website log analysis program that uses an <a href="http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,63767,00.html?tw=wn_tophead_1">graphical urban metaphor</a> to visualize website traffic flow.<br /> <img src="http://www.planetizen.com/tech/files//200406609-visitorville.jpg" alt="VisitorVille Screenshot" align="right" /><br /> <blockquote>"A company's entire Web presence is seen as an urban or suburban neighborhood, with each individual Web page presented as a building. The more visitors on a site, the taller the buildings, and the brighter the lights on each floor...each visitor is represented by a small avatar that, when clicked, presents a passport that offers several pieces of information about the user, such as her or his IP address, where that person came from and more. Avatars from dot-com domains wear a suit. Those from dot-edu domains dress as students."</blockquote>

June 9 - Abhijeet Chavan

Louisiana's $14-billion effort to save the state's coast from erosion is in jeopardy after the White House sets aside an engineering study.

June 9 - The Los Angeles Times

In a victory for the Bush administration, thousands of vehicles from Mexico can now ply America's highways without emission controls. A previously-commissioned air-impact study was ruled "legally pointless" and abandoned.

June 9 - The San Francisco Chronicle