The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> Two years ago the Planetizen editors asked me to contribute a monthly blog posting. The first one appeared in February 2007 and I have managed to submit <a href="/blog/10386" target="_blank">posts </a>monthly for two years. In accepting the assignment, I decided that I needed to have an angle. I write, teach, and practice about the substance of planning so I decided to do something else—provide advice for students on how to enter and succeed in planning programs. Martin Krieger at USC already provided a terrific <a href="http://blogs.usc.edu/sppd/krieger/" target="_blank">advice column</a> for doctoral students so I decided to focus on students in professional planning programs. </p>

January 31 - Ann Forsyth

In the slow recovery from Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans is finally getting into the green movement.

January 31 - MSNBC

The Project for Public Spaces has released a summary of the top ten trends shaping the future of America's communities -- from public markets to community-based transportation planning.

January 31 - Project For Public Spaces

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'">Perhaps the biggest difference between the design processes in Europe and North America, at the building scale and increasingly at the neighbourhood scale, is in the use of design competitions. I&#39;ve been fascinated by this difference</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial; color: blue"> </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'">for some time, and make a point while in every competition-friendly city I&#39;m in, to dig a little deeper. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: 'Courier New'"> </span> </p>

January 30 - Brent Toderian

Hoare Road, East Breast, and North Piddle are actual place names that get a chuckle out of most people. But when it comes to the more "aesthetically unsuitable" names, feelings are divided.

January 30 - The New York Times

A researcher of weird roadside attractions stumbled onto an unusual clash of land uses - cemeteries wedged into parking lots. Here's a collection of photos.

January 30 - Roadside Resort

Wes Marshall and Norman Garrick, after a study of data from 130,000 car crashes in California, have determined that cities built since since 1950 have more dangerous roads than those built before 1950.

January 30 - New Urban News

Queensland University of Technology Prof. Jeannie Sim says that while density has increased in the city, green spaces have diminished.

January 30 - The Brisbane Times

Less than a year ago, downtown Los Angeles was seen as a rising star, on a path towards becoming a vibrant and humming urban core. But the economic dive has stalled many projects, and they could be stalled for quite a while, according to this column.

January 30 - Los Angeles Magazine

Portland's new Westside Express Service officially opens today, carrying passengers from Beaverton to Wilsonville. The Oregonian calls it, "a punch of hard-rolling rust-and-grease."

January 30 - The Oregonian

An organization in Chicago's Little Village gives tours to educate its Mexican-American residents on how they can improve their notoriously polluted community. Grassroots efforts like this are being lauded by environmental justice groups.

January 30 - Chicago Tribune

A futuristic-looking, carbon-neutral development is rising on the shores of the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, featuring residential buidlings designed to mimic the country's famous Seven Peaks.

January 30 - Loudreams

Cities in the Dallas-Fort Worth area are working together to save water and use reclaimed water for non-drinking purposes.

January 30 - Fort Worth Star Telegram

Traffic is a nightmare in Cali, Colombia, the Latin American country's third-largest city. But a massive redesign is taking place, with German transit efficiency guiding the way.

January 30 - Der Spiegel

Urban development needs to be re-considered as urban redevelopment, according to this column from <em>MinnPost</em>.

January 29 - MinnPost

County sheriff’s deputies seek to cut inmate transportation costs by utilizing the Metro Light Rail. Passenger safety concerns have obviously been raised.

January 29 - The Arizona Republic

The Department of the Interior is alleged to have generated electric energy by limiting water flow to the Grand Canyon, at the expense of the landmarks' ecology--despite having access to scientific findings that warned against doing so.

January 29 - The Washington Post

A nonprofit organization is promoting the idea of closing Manhattan's 42nd St. to traffic and putting in a 2.5 mile street level light rail line.

January 29 - The New York Times

Global warming has slipped precipitously in the public's mind as a top concern, as the nation's recession took the number one slot in a Pew Research Center telephone poll. In fact, it ranked last in a list of 20 issues, yet 'energy' was #6.

January 29 - The New York Times

A little-known USDA program offers Rural Development Guaranteed Loans, which would allow low-income residents to buy homes in "rural" areas--places with fewer than 25,000 people. Under this guideline, many suburbs in Phoenix qualify.

January 29 - NPR