The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The Open Planning Project's Executive Director Mark Gorton talks with Janette Sadik-Khan about how her agency is redefining public space in New York City.

October 24 - Streetsblog

Plunging oil prices are hitting three oil-producing countries the hardest: Venezuela, Iran, and Russia. This article looks at each of them and evaluates how they will fare if oil prices do not rise, including their relationships to the U.S.

October 24 - The New York Times

A reporter goes undercover as a homeless person to find out what happens when the indigent pay a visit to L.A.'s first corporate-controlled public park.

October 24 - LA Weekly

The annual UN State of the World's Cities report contains a dire warning for American cities: racial divisions and social inequities are at alarming levels.

October 24 - Guardian (UK)

Sometimes big box retailers get too big for the boxes they're in. So they move. What's left behind are huge empty buildings -- and opportunities for re-use.

October 24 - NPR

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman"> </span>Technology innovation – that’s all we need to solve the energy crisis!<span>  </span>Unleash American ingenuity and we’ll be able to cope with higher energy costs.<span>  </span>The Windmillmobile, should go a long way toward reducing petroleum consumption.<span>  </span>It seems to work fine unless there is a strong tailwind.<span>  </span>The engineers are still working on the sensor to fold down the windmill for garages and overpasses.<span>  </span><span style="font-size: small"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman"> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> &nbsp; </p> </span></span>

October 24 - Steven Polzin

Critic Christopher Hawthorne argues that a difficult market could lead architecture away from a fascination with large, iconic buildings to a focus on the 'connective tissue' of cities.

October 24 - The Los Angeles Times

October 24 - Salon.com

In metropolitan Kansas City, two sales tax initiatives on the ballot in efforts to raise money for the region's long-planned light rail system.

October 24 - The Kansas City Star

The myth of the American West as a wild, natural place is long gone, says urban studies professor Carl Abbott. The Western U.S. is actually the most urban part of the nation.

October 24 - The Hartford Courant

The Urban Land Institute reports on their new study, which predicts the real estate market will hit bottom in 2009 and 'flounder' through 2010.

October 24 - ULI's The Ground Floor

Robert Sibley comments on the worldwide problem of homeless people in public spaces, and reflects on how Canadians can and should manage them.

October 23 - The Ottowa Citizen

Budget cuts have resulted in new overtime caps imposed on the Maryland Transit Administration, causing delays and even cancellations of some bus runs.

October 23 - The Baltimore Sun

The last empty lot in Boston's posh Back Bay neighborhood will soon be developed into a luxury, contextually appropriate, condominium.

October 23 - Boston Globe

BLOG POST

<p> <img src="/files/u2/20080827-clip.png" align="right" />Is it possible to condense two weeks of soaring rhetoric by politicians into a single graphic? Let&#39;s find out.<br /> <br /> In my last post I covered free online tools for <a href="/node/34623">creating information graphics</a>.  Here is a look at another free online tool that can be used to easily create sophisticated visualizations and information graphics. <br /> <br />

October 23 - Abhijeet Chavan

October 23 - The Concord Monitor

London, Ontario has been focused on retaining and embracing its creative class. The city remains optimistic that it's on the right track toward becoming a creative city--which has been good news for its economy.

October 23 - The Londoner

San Francisco's Municipal Railway transit system will see incremental but major changes in the next five years.

October 23 - The San Francisco Chronicle

BLOG POST

<p> City streets need only few things to make them safe, according to the famous urbanist Jane Jacobs. She says safe streets need people walking around, places for them to go, things for them to do and other people for them to interact with. Simple as that. But Jane forgot one more thing: a sock full of quarters. <br />

October 23 - Nate Berg

In this review of Alex MacLean's new book, "Over: The American Landscape at the Tipping Point," Hervé Kempf of Le Monde describes MacLean's book as a photo essay on a nation at the end of an era.

October 23 - Truthout