The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>As thousands of houses continue to foreclose, many homeowners and real estate experts are predicting that abandoned homes will blight neighborhoods across the country and send property values plummeting.</p>

August 29 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>Two planned projects in New Orleans -- a jazz center and a mixed-use park -- reveal ambitious visions for the future of a city still in the process of recovering. But the scale of the projects would require extensive state and federal support.</p>

August 29 - The New York Times

<p>Many world cities are undergoing successful rebirths, but many see the smaller so-called "second cities" as the true hubs for long-term economic success.</p>

August 29 - Der Spiegel

<p>Delays in development and growth in Portland's harbor area could cost the region thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.</p>

August 29 - The Portland Tribune

<p>Politicians in England looking for ways to comply with a nationwide goal of carbon-neutrality by 2050 have proposed a phase-out of gas-fueled cars by the year 2040.</p>

August 29 - The Guardian

<p>The mixed results of an experiment to remove all private auto traffic from the streets of Beijing leads city officials to concede that there are no 'silver bullets' to cope with the city's air pollution during next summer's Olympics.</p>

August 28 - World Watch

<p>Two years after Hurricane Katrina, the state of the city's architectural future remains in flux.</p>

August 28 - New Orleans Times-Picayune

<p>Cars and shipping will all be controlled automatically and traffic jams will be a thing of the past, according to a new book that posits a futuristic transit system within 50 years.</p>

August 28 - The Observer via Guardian Unlimited

<p>In the communities on the Texas side of the U.S.-Mexico border, development is an incremental process. But with an influx of public services and infrastructure, the humble villages are blossoming.</p>

August 28 - International Herald Tribune

<p>As global demand for ethanol and other plant-based energy sources booms, farmers have to make the choice between feeding people or feeding their energy habits. Many predict they will increasingly opt for the latter, causing food shortages worldwide.</p>

August 28 - The Times

<p>Individual ownership, privately operated services, and professional management are part of the new face of the kibbutz -- Israel's cooperative intentional communities founded on Marxist and socialist principles.</p>

August 28 - International Herald Tribune

<p>Billions have been invested in redeveloping Houston's downtown. Now, civic boosters are looking to revive a waterfront section of the city by creating active parkspace and increasing preservation efforts for a nearby historic building.</p>

August 28 - The Houston Chronicle

<p>Citing the city's poor economic stature, residents of a section of Gary, Indiana, are proposing that they split from the city. Some say race and class differences are the undercurrents spurring the idea.</p>

August 28 - The Chicago Tribune

<p>Two years later, many New Orleans neighborhoods remain abandoned and former residents report no intentions of returning.</p>

August 28 - The Washington Post

<p>Five mansions on the U.S. housing market are looking to become the most expensive homes ever sold in the country, and maybe the world.</p>

August 28 - The Wall Street Journal

<p>Geoff Manaugh observes that truly sustainable architecture goes unnoticed while designs that end up "ornamentalizing sustainability" get the "green" label and the media's attention.</p>

August 27 - BLDGBLOG

A trend of dense downtown development in Los Angeles has some calling the city's new urban growth pattern a move towards "Manhattanization".

August 27 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>This column from <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> argues that the best way to prevent damages from natural disasters is not to fight carbon emissions, but to prevent people from living in disaster-prone areas.</p>

August 27 - The Wall Street Journal

<p>Urban farming takes root in Detroit.</p>

August 27 - The Detroit Free Press

<p>A major rezoning in Jamaica, Queens, to allow more jobs and housing, up to six stories, is cautiously supported by some community boards, and opposed outright by others.</p>

August 27 - The New York Times