The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The newly passed stimulus bill's sustainability elements are blessings for green builders and environmentalists. As far as commercial property owners are concerned, however, those elements may be seen as too much work for little benefit.

February 4 - National Real Estate Investor

Author, WSJ columnist and Huffington Post blogger Thomas Frank cautions against the public-private partnerships that are leasing public toll roads, warning that it isn't in the public interest; that they will become affordable only to the wealthy.

February 4 - The Huffington Post

San Francisco and other cities have historically given developers the incentive to build taller for providing a proportional amount of public space. This article looks at what has worked as well as how it has backfired.

February 4 - San Francisco Chronicle

Architect Teddy Cruz examines the south-north flow of "nonconforming urbanism" in the Tijuana-San Diego region, and how changing communities in this dynamic area could shape the way we think about increasing density.

February 4 - The Nation

Mixed communication, contested railway lines and the collision of local, state and federal entities has put the future of Atlanta's Beltline greenspace and transit project.

February 4 - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Developers in British Columbia are not hopeful for their field's outlook, estimating that the market freeze could last for another year and a half.

February 4 - The Globe and Mail

BLOG POST

<p> <span><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">We have just published a new report, </span></span><span><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">&quot;</span><a href="http://www.vtpi.org/econ_stim.pdf"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">Smart Transportation Economic Stimulation: Infrastructure Investments That Support Strategic Planning Objectives Provide True Economic Development</span></a><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">&quot;</span></span> which <span style="font-size: 11pt; color: navy; font-family: 'Arial','sans-serif'">discusses factors to consider when evaluating transportation economic stimulation strategies.

February 3 - Todd Litman

Futurist Dr. Ray Kurzweil is part of a team of big thinkers on the faculty of Singularity University, a joint project of Google and NASA with a mission to solve "humanity's grand challenges."

February 3 - TechCrunch

Brad Templeton, chairman of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, hopes that robot-driven cars will become commonplace on our roads in the next decade or two.

February 3 - Boing Boing

In an effort to improve gas mileage, 400 drivers in Denver participated in an experiment that tracked and reported the bad driving habits -- idling, rapid accelerating and braking -- that waste fuel. Faced with the data, driving habits have changed.

February 3 - Los Angeles Times

As part of the city's drawn-out battle with outdoor advertisers, Los Angeles officials have ordered building owners to remove "supergraphic" ads plastered to the sides of large buildings.

February 3 - The New York Times

A long-help plan to install GPS-ready bus tracking equipment to New York City buses has been pushed off indefinitely.

February 3 - NY1 News

Following similar discoveries of fraud in the U.S., the Italian government has uncovered a scheme to increase local revenues by artificially shortening yellow lights.

February 3 - BBC News

"Branded cities" -- new heavily-sponsored real estate developments with a mix of live- work- and retail-space -- are gaining popularity among developers and spreading around the country.

February 3 - Media Week

More than 20 million Chinese who had migrated to cities for work have been forced to return to the rural countryside as urban jobs dry up.

February 3 - Guardian

New updates to the online visualization program Google Earth add oceans to the image-based virtual version of the planet.

February 3 - The New York Times

This three-part series from the <em>BBC</em> looks at bicycles in the modern world -- from Paris to Uganda to India.

February 3 - BBC

A program known as ‘cash for clunkers’ is being considered for inclusion in the Senate stimulus package to make the U.S. auto fleet more fuel-efficient and stimulate demand for new, cleaner cars. Will the older vehicles will be scrapped or resold?

February 2 - Bloomberg News

The city of Dallas is committing to purchase homes for hundreds of homeless residents, rather than building shelters.

February 2 - Dallas Morning News

Artist Joshua Callaghan paints over utility boxes in his community to make them disappear into their surroundings.

February 2 - Joshua Callaghan