The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Millions of Germans this weekend closed off a 40-mile stretch of autobahn for a banquet and party.

July 20 - BBC

Nearly half of the commercial real estate in the U.S. is underwater, according to Elizabeth Warren, Chair of the Congressional Oversight Panel. She is concerned that a coming crisis could sink the current recovery.

July 19 - Blueprint America

Charlotte just won $25 million in grants from the federal government to combine with $12 million of local funds to build a streetcar system. Some say it's a waste of money. This editorial from <em>The Charlotte Observer</em> argues its case.

July 19 - The Charlotte Observer

The Los Angeles River has long been forgotten by many of the city's residents and officials. <em>GOOD</em>'s Alissa Walker takes a look at some plans to reintegrate the river into the city.

July 19 - Good

Hoboken, New Jersey has instituted a new car sharing service -- one run by a rental car company that pays the city for the right to operate.

July 19 - The New York Times

FEATURE

Proposals for new projects arrive on city desks everyday showing vibrant public plazas full of people. But too often those spaces fail to attract people in the way they were portrayed. Are Photoshopped people a deliberate falsehood?

July 19 - Tim Halbur

Rather than being part of a car liberation or permeable pavement movement, poorly maintained county roads are having their asphalt ground into gravel as a cost-cutting measure to avoid costly road reconstruction. Lack of funding is the cause.

July 19 - Wall Street Journal - U.S.

The Ohio Department of Transportation is experimenting with "green noise walls" instead of the standard eyesore, using bags of soil sprouting greenery as an alternative to concrete.

July 19 - The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Andrew Knee calls Milwaukee a "walker's paradise," saying that the city has completely changed from a decade ago into a walkable network of neighborhoods.

July 19 - UrbanOut

Northeast Corridor NJ Transit has announced that beginning in September they will feature "quiet cars" on their trains for passengers who prefer peace and quiet over cell phones and chatter.

July 19 - Gothamist

Gensler has revealed the designs for The Museum of Bond Vehicles + Espionage, which will be located in Momence, Illinois. Momence, pop. 3000, is hoping the museum could jump start their economy and put them on the map.

July 19 - Fast Company

To mark "World Population Day", Grist published this commentary by environmental writer Fred Pearce who asks environmentalists not to fall in the Malthusian trap of blaming population, not consumption.

July 19 - Grist

Richard Florida believes "a new way of working and a new kind of workplace have evolved. Increasingly, places are supplanting plants — corporate headquarters and factories — as the principal social and economic organizing units of our time."

July 18 - New York Times

The City Council of Zephyrhills, Florida is the latest public entity to come out against Amendment 4, a proposition that would require a public vote on any changes to local land use plans.

July 18 - The St. Petersburg Times

Jarrett Walker argues that reports of the decline of public transportation ridership have been exaggerated.

July 18 - Human Transit

"More cities in the developed world shrank than grew in the last three decades. More than 40 of those cities were in the United States, according to City Mayors, an urban affairs think tank," writes Gordon Young.

July 18 - Slate Magazine

In this WSJ Opinion, MIT professor and former under secretary of Energy John Deutch explains how the BP gusher and discovery of vast supplies of unconventional natural gas will combine to increase natural gas energy usage by replacing coal, then oil.

July 18 - Wall Street Journal: Opinion Journal

In tiny Myrtletown, California, the Hummingbird Healing Center is arguing that it doesn't need a conditional use permit to sell weed. The county does not agree.

July 17 - Eureka Times Standard

Where the Bay Bridge touches down in San Francisco, a new plan is in the works to turn a motley collection of underused spaces into a vibrant park.

July 17 - ASLA's The Dirt blog

Kevin Scott is a 21-year old designer and new graduate who has designed a bicycle that bends in the middle, giving the rider the ability to wrap it around a pole and lock both tires at once.

July 17 - DiscoveryNews