The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Opting for a small residence and living car-free can bring other environmental consequences, writes Carla Saulter.

January 12 - Grist

Parag Khanna suggests that cities are the building blocks of humanity, and will take increasing control over the future shape of the world in the coming decades.

January 11 - What Matters

In a review of the new bike sharing program in London, <em>The Economist</em> raises the question of whether the city wrongly predicted the existing demand for the service.

January 11 - The Economist

NIMBYism is obstructing the urban planning process, according to architect and New Urbanist Andres Duany. He suggests changing the public participation process to unclog the system.

January 11 - Architect

Metro stations, train stations and streetcar systems have distinct ways of showing how to get from one area to another. TheCityFix's Jonna McKone looks at mass transit systems from Mexico City to Paris and the visual representations used in each one.

January 11 - TheCityFix

In this piece, Stewart Brand argues that squatter cities will grow greatly over the next few decades, and the world will be better because of it.

January 11 - What Matters

<em>Toronto Star</em> critic Christopher Hume predicts a lackluster 2011 for Toronto -- both in terms of architecture and urbanism.

January 11 - The Toronto Star

The plot of a new Muppets movie in the works is said to focus largely around historic preservation issues, according to this post from <em>Curbed LA</em>.

January 11 - Curbed LA

A study of tree cover and pregnant women suggests that women living in areas with more trees are less likely to give birth to undersized babies.

January 11 - The Oregonian

Amid talk of downsizing and abandonment, a new surge of young investors has been moving into Detroit and revitalizing its economy.

January 11 - The Detroit Free Press

Wal-Mart has started a major public relations effort to try to get the public behind plans to open several of its big box retail stores in New York City.

January 11 - The New York Times

Planetizen's Nate Berg posits that Burning Man, the yearly freak festival in the Nevada desert, has become "a highly planned, intricately organized and fully functioning city" of 50,000 people.

January 10 - Places Journal

Minimalism, long declared dead, rises from the grave to lumber on, writes Sam Jacob. Can it be stopped?

January 10 - Strange Harvest

A new documentary promises to reveal the stories of the people who lived in the infamous Pruitt-Igoe housing complex. The filmmakers promise to "implode myths" about this symbol of failed urban renewal policy.

January 10 - pruitt-igoe.com

Stephen L. Cowell, an energy efficiency expert, says that while other careers are sputtering the business of creating savings by reducing energy consumption is going gangbusters.

January 10 - Renewable Energy World

FEATURE

The state of Detroit is alarming, particularly in its continued dependence on cars, but there is hope that the city could reinvent itself as an ecological metropolis, says Jeffrey Kenworthy of the Curtin University of Technology.

January 10 - Jeff Kenworthy

Lawrence Avenue in Chicago's Lincoln Square ballooned over the years to 4 lanes. Putting the street on a "road diet" will make it friendlier to pedestrians.

January 10 - The Chicago Tribune

Representative Earl Blumenauer, well-known as a supporter of progressive transportation policies, says that the Republican majority in the House is up to "budget gimmickry that undermines our economy and the safety of our communities."

January 10 - The Infrastructurist

Just as failing industries marked the decline of the Midwest after WWII (hence the name 'Rust Belt'), the new declining cities will be denoted by their percentage of foreclosures, found particularly in California, the Southwest, and Florida.

January 10 - International Business Times

Sounding very much like the new OH and WI Republican governors, a key state Republican legislator wants to avoid the ongoing state subsidy for Iowa City to Chicago trains. At stake is $230 million in a Federal rail grant to build 110 mph trains.

January 10 - Des Moines Register