The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

In Oregon, transportation officials are set to vote on an ambitious list of transportation projects that they hope will garner funding when Congress allocates transportation money this year.

January 22 - The Oregonian

Hopes are fading from transit enthusiasts who wanted to see high speed rail and public transit profit from Obama's stimulus package. Even the road lobby is disappointed that infrastructure will get less than tax cuts and state bail-outs.

January 22 - The New York Times

This editorial suggests three strategies to make the American auto fleet more efficient: renewing the hybrid tax credit program (many credits have been exhausted), pursuing a "cash for clunkers program", and increasing the gas tax to supplement CAFE.

January 22 - The New York Times

The line between suburb and city blurs as suburbs struggle with the problems of the cities' past. But there's hope, say this article's authors, who make a case for regionalism and government's active role in reinventing such struggling places.

January 22 - Newsweek

The author of this article offers a few ideas on how to better use our 46,000 miles of highway. From the integration of rail lines to the development of electricity distribution grids, the interstate has more potential than it seems.

January 22 - Metropolis Magazine

Plans for a new school and mixed use development in Brooklyn have neighbors excited about the project filling a need but also disappointed about the new project's height, which they say will ruin their view.

January 22 - The New York Times

Municipalities are increasingly ready to meet the rising demands by residents who want to raise their own chickens for food.

January 22 - NPR

This editorial argues that the San Francisco isn't ready for a complex scheme that the public dislikes, raises little funding, and would send an 'unwelcome' message to visitors.

January 22 - San Francisco Chronicle

FEATURE

January 22 - Nate Berg

On Tuesday, over a million Americans made it to Washington, D.C. to attend President Obama's inauguration. Christopher Hawthorne relates the nation's refreshed optimism to an impending revival of urbanism and public space.

January 22 - Los Angeles Times

Coriandoline, a housing development in Correggio, Italy, is the first to have been designed primarily by children. The award-winning neighborhood boasts themed houses and "built-in playability."

January 21 - Radio Netherlands Worldwide

It's one of those good news-bad news revelations: the housing and job crises are causing more people to stay put. NY's out-migration was the lowest since the Census tracked outflows in 1982. More residents left Florida than arrived, a first.

January 21 - The New York Times

PBS' NOW goes to California to look at new state requirements for renewable energy, and the battle over where the new infrastructure will go.

January 21 - NOW

Highlights of the Coney Island revival plan include new housing, shops, and recreational facilities--which some say have no place in the historic amusement district.

January 21 - New York Daily News

California's high-speed rail project is a triumph for rail advocates, but made possible by private sector funding. A Canadian rail project must also follow the model of public-private partnerships.

January 21 - The Globe and Mail

Outdoor signs, some of them quite large, have gone up around Los Angeles despite a 90-day moratorium on them. Tenants of buildings with such multistory "supergraphics" draped over their windows share their grief.

January 21 - Los Angeles Times

Berkeley, California has launched a citywide program that offers support to residents who wish to reduce their carbon footprints. Like Alcoholics Anonymous, these support groups are "part social, part confessional and partly about accountability."

January 21 - The San Francisco Chronicle

Paul Loeb and Deron Lovaas, Federal Transportation Policy Director for the Natural Resource Defense Council, pan the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009" Bill for failing to adequately fund rail and road repairs.

January 21 - CommonDreams

Growth rates in Waco, Texas, have planners concerned that the region won't be able to afford the necessary roads and services the new sprawl will require.

January 21 - Waco Tribune-Herald

The income gap between rural and urban residents in China has increased again in 2008, and has been attributed to other social inequities in the growing country.

January 21 - BBC