The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

BLOG POST

<p> Last Tuesday was a big day for me and an even bigger Earth Day for the City of Los Angeles. After 18 months of meetings, focus groups, workshops, conference calls, briefings, and a lot of collective putting together of heads the City Council unanimously passed a landmark green building ordinance. Three hours later it was signed into law by the Mayor. </p>

April 29 - Walker Wells

BLOG POST

<p> <span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial">One of the many signs that green development and design is reaching a tipping point toward becoming business-as-usual, is the quantity of articles and writings on the subject in what might be considered &quot;mainstream&quot; land development publications. Case-in-point is the current Issue of <em>Urban</em><em> Land</em>, the <em>Green</em> issue. This attention is a good thing, despite the growing need to ensure that developments that play the green card, truly do walk the talk.</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Arial"> </span> </p>

April 28 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

<p> <img src="/files/u4/20080428-apa-0667.jpg" alt="Las Vegas Strip" title="Las Vegas Strip" hspace="5" vspace="5" width="320" height="240" align="right" /> I&#39;m at the Paris Hotel on the Vegas strip for the 100th annual American Planning Association (APA) <a href="http://www.planning.org/nationalconference/">conference</a>, which started Saturday, and runs through Thursday, May 1. The conference offers 300 sessions and 60 mobile workshops to the approximately 5,000 participants. </p> <p> And it&#39;s going to be a crowded week, if the 30-minute line for coffee this morning in the Paris boulangerie is any indication. </p> <p> <strong>Infrastructure matters; Planners should be politically active.</strong> </p>

April 28 - Chris Steins

With New York City's congestion pricing proposal effectively dead, DOT Secretary Peters indicated that the city had forfeited its $350 million grant, and gave other cities the chance to apply. Now Los Angles may grab over $200 million for transit.

April 28 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>This in-depth look at the future of energy shows a coming crisis, with the oil shortage taking center stage due to India and China's thirst for cars. The U.S. sets a poor example for them to follow with low fuel taxes and long commutes.</p>

April 28 - The New York Times

<p>As the housing industry flounders, New Urbanist developers are using the flexibility inherent in their community plans to their advantage.</p>

April 28 - New Urban News

<p>Newsweek profiles the most influential environmental leaders of the last century.</p>

April 28 - Newsweek

<p>The sub prime crisis is affecting both the growth of planned suburbs and prompting the decline of new suburbs. Is the US heading for Slumburbia?</p>

April 28 - The Guardian

<p>The Sacramento region has become a national model for smart growth planning. But what, asks Bill Fulton, will it take to make the region sustainable for decades to come?</p>

April 28 - California Planning & Development Report

<p>The Washington D.C. Metro transit system is planning to hire a group of "mystery riders" to discretely monitor the system and identify areas for improvement. Critics call the plan a waste of money.</p>

April 28 - The Washington Post

<p>That's how many are expected to inhabit the world by 2050. Experts worry over looming food shortages.</p>

April 28 - The Christian Science Monitor

<p>A recent report argues that tolls could provide the solution to Seattle's traffic congestion, but they would have to be very high, and very widely used.</p>

April 28 - The Seattle Times

<p>This video from <em>CBC</em> looks at how Victoria, British Columbia, plans to mimic the efforts of Portland, Oregon, to reduce homelessness by taking a "housing first" approach.</p>

April 28 - CBC News: The National

FEATURE

Neighborhoods -- their habits, their participants, and their values -- are what create and define value in a city and in a home. Cities need to embrace this fact if they want to preserve values and retain residents.

April 28 - Charles Buki

<p>The City Manager of Portland, Maine terminates 98 positions, including the Urban Designer and Historic Preservation staff, eliminates the Parks Department, and moves the Economic Development department in to the Administrative office.</p>

April 28 - Portland Press Herald

<p>A former bus and rail yard in park-poor South Los Angeles will be converted into an "urban wetland park".</p>

April 27 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>A new study shows that supermarkets have migrated away from Canada's central and poorer neighborhoods, turning them into 'food deserts' with minimal access to more expensive food.</p>

April 27 - The Windsor Star

<p>Officials in the United Kingdom are looking at a new technique to deal with frozen winter roads -- by collecting and saving summer heat.</p>

April 27 - The Guardian

<p>"Cat cafes" are popping up all over Tokyo, giving patrons the company of a cat -- without the burden of actually owning one. There are at least seven cat cafes in Tokyo.</p>

April 27 - The Christian Science Monitor

<p>Vacant lots and underutilized dirt patches are the the romping grounds of a new breed of activists. Known as "guerrilla gardeners", groups of people all over the world are reclaiming their cities' public spaces and landscapes by planting seeds.</p>

April 27 - The Guardian