The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The Houston Chronicle looks at the holes in Houston's transit grid, which force some riders into ridiculously long commutes.

August 8 - The Houston Chronicle

<p>The cost of home heating is expected to rise considerably this winter, but with utilities unable to obtain credit, Washington deadlocked on how to deal with it, and LIHEAP underfunded American households are in for a tough winter.</p>

August 8 - The New York Times

This piece from <em>WorldChanging</em> looks at the trend of dying indoor malls, and some creative ideas for reviving or reusing them.

August 8 - WorldChanging

In order to save an ancient kingdom that was flooded by a reservoir in the 1950s, officials in Bulgaria will build a €100 million wall around the submerged monument.

August 8 - Turkish Weekly

Astride the maze of rivers east of San Francisco that crisscross California's Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta stand two imposing edifices — the pumping stations that supply water to vast swaths of the state. When operating at full throttle, the Harvey O. Banks Pumping Plant, managed by the state of California, and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation's C.W. "Bill" Jones Pumping Plant, have the capacity to entirely reverse the flow on the delta tributaries upon which they sit.

August 8 - Miller-McCune

A Vancouver company is importing Dutch city bicycles, and the relaxed commuting lifestyle that goes with them.

August 8 - The Vancouver Sun

Integrated inner-city public schools were the first to see this phenomenon more than 20 years ago -- classrooms that were predominately children of color. This was attributed to White Flight: the abandoning of the inner city by middle class Caucasians. Not only are minority youth populations the majority of the public school enrollments throughout the country, they are also now a majority of several United States cities and counties.

August 8 - The New York Times

The expansion of a Baltimore hospital has sparked a neighborhood-wide urban renewal project.

August 8 - The New York Times

Rob Gifford reviews Michael Meyer's new book "The Last Days of Old Beijing," and how it brings to life a rapidly vanishing element of the Chinese city: the hutong, or alleyways, which are being swiftly demolished and redeveloped.

August 7 - Slate

Discussion of high speed rail, livable cities and federal transportation funding reform is starting to make its way into presidential candidate Barack Obama's campaign talks and energy platform.

August 7 - Streetsblog

<p>Olympics-related construction in Beijing has impressed many, but does little to make the city a better place. Architecture critic Blair Kamin says Chicago needs to be careful about not repeating China's mistakes if it hosts the games in 2016.</p>

August 7 - The Chicago Tribune

<p>Suburban growth in the DC area has been fueled by low gas prices and abundant freeways. Expensive gas has changed this growth paradigm as commuters shift to public transit and seek close-in homes. Will government respond to the change in the market?</p>

August 7 - The Washington Post

<p>The F-Market is a streetcar line in San Francisco that features restored historic streetcars. When it was built in 1995, many saw it as a novelty, but today it is so popular and crowded that it has become an inefficient means of transportation.</p>

August 7 - The San Francisco Chronicle

<p>After years of being ranked one of the worst bicycling cities in America, the City of Boston is moving forward with bicycle infrastructure development as a means to cutting congestion and pollution.</p>

August 7 - The Boston Globe

<p>A psychology site reviews <em>Mental Health and Social Space: Towards Inclusionary Geographies</em>, a book by Hester Parr that looks at new ideas in including (or excluding) people with mental disabilities from public spaces.</p>

August 7 - Metapsychology.com

<p>The prospect of a looming MTA deficit and rising transit fares is prompting a second look at congestion pricing in Manhattan, a project defeated by the state Assembly in April, notwithstanding a federal grant for $360 million.</p>

August 7 - The New York Times

<p>Australian designer Hamit Kanuni Kuralkan has designed a transit concept lined with one-person compartments for personal space. </p>

August 7 - Treehugger

<p>China is rapidly becoming home to more and more mega-cities, and there's little sign of it slowing down.</p>

August 7 - The Washington Post

<p>New York's Chinatown is a popular place for filming, which brings a lot of film crews to the neighborhood. A temporary film crew parking ban has been put in place, but the results are mixed.</p>

August 6 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

<p> As gas prices keep rising, the public demand for buses and trains keeps growing. Yet in some cities, government is actually cutting back transit service, because rising gas prices make transit vehicles more expensive to operate.(1) But as a matter of substantive policy, service reductions are not only less desirable than service increases, but also less desirable than fare increases. As a bus rider, I’d rather pay $1.50 and know that my service is safe from fiscal crises than pay $1 and worry that my service might be reduced or canceled next month. Moreover, if fairness means spreading pain equally throughout the population, it is fairer to have everyone pay a little more than to have some neighborhoods be left without service. </p>

August 6 - Michael Lewyn