The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Chuck Wolfe traces the comeback of sandwich board signage in cities, explains how associated regulations work, and offers reasons why such signage should be carefully fostered.

February 24 - The Atlantic Cities

In advance of Next American City’s upcoming "Reimagining Urban Highways" conference in Philadelphia, Matt Bevilacqua reports on a new study examining the successful replacement of urban highways with boulevards and parks.

February 23 - Next American City

Writing from Austin, Texas, one of the current centers for hipster culture in the U.S., Lauren Modery proposes a list of the next cities she believes are ripe for an explosion of old-timey facial hair, geeky eyewear, and overall hipsterfication.

February 23 - CultureMap Austin

In what may turn out to be a landmark ruling, the right of Dryden, a New York township adjacent to Cornell University to use its zoning code to ban the controversial drilling technique known fracking was upheld by the N.Y. State Supreme Court.

February 23 - Pro Publica

Kaid Benfield revisits the results of a plan to revitalize the town center of Plessis-Robinson, a suburb of Paris, with the suggestion that its success could inform similar efforts in the United States.

February 23 - Switchboard

Yonah Freemark reports on Chicago's commitment of $7.3 million, supplementing $24.6 million in federal funds already in place, to improve bus service between Union Station and Navy Pier.

February 23 - the transport politic

A well-intentioned new bill that could nudge food trucks out of huge swaths of territory now faces backlash, explains Jonathan Kauffman.

February 23 - SF Weekly

The battle being waged by Toronto's first-term mayor Rob Ford over the future of transit in the city is getting uglier by the day, as the Toronto Transit Commission voted Tuesday to fire chief general manager Gary Webster.

February 23 - Toronto Star

Charlie Gardner writes about what can be found in, and more importantly what is excluded from, one of the most progressive code revisions to be adopted by a major American city.

February 23 - Old Urbanist

Popular in such countries as the Netherlands and Japan for some time, the first full service vending machine to be located in an apartment community in the United States has arrived in Fort Worth, Texas, reports Tim Blackwell.

February 23 - Property Management Insider

New York City is taking steps to manage the dumping of raw sewage, Mireya Navarro reports.

February 23 - New York Times - Green Blog

As Nevada becomes the first state in the country to approve self-driving cars, Robert Bruegmann considers what changes to the built environment driverless cars could have.

February 22 - Bloomberg

John Metcalfe reports on efforts by one New York architect to utilize the city's ubiquitous pay telephone booths as the settings for pop-up libraries.

February 22 - The Atlantic Cities

A $1.1 billion renovation of the Disney California Adventure theme park in Anaheim is oriented around the recreation of Los Angeles landmarks of the 1920s and 30s, when the head mouseketeer himself began building his empire.

February 22 - KCET.org

Cezary Podkul and Emily Stephenson examine the likely economic and social consequences of efforts by the U.S. Postal Service to close thousands of rural post offices this year.

February 22 - The Washington Post

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> <em>Where there are no facts, sentiment rules.</em> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> - Oswald Spengler, <em>The Decline of the West</em> </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> &nbsp; </p> <p class="MsoNormal"> In my previous two posts I have set the stage for our consideration of information sources in planning by arguing for the relevance of such an effort when it comes to<a href="/node/53999"> (increasingly controversial) urban planning issues</a>, and to situate such in terms of recognizing the<a href="/node/54355"> influence of our world views</a> on the production and use of informational and built environments.  </p>

February 22 - Michael Dudley

In Kansas City, the historic home of jazz and Prohibition-era excess struggles with a redevelopment effort that attempts to build on that era's history while leaving behind some of its essential characteristics, writes Brandon R. Reynolds.

February 22 - The Atlantic Cities

John King authors an article examining the types of privately owned public spaces that have been created in San Francisco under the city's 1985 downtown plan and sees room for improvement.

February 22 - San Francisco Chronicle

As city officials introduce plans to overhaul waste disposal in the capital of Mexico, a deeply rooted constituency fights back.

February 22 - New York Times

Lecturers call race a "surrogate" for socioeconomic factors that determine health outcomes, reports Beth Fitzgerald.

February 22 - NJ Spotlight