The Daily Source of Urban Planning News
Trading In The Car For A Metro Pass
<p>Tasked with making Los Angeles more pedestrian-friendly, a planner decides to give up his car.</p>
The Latest Home-Based Business: Wineries
<p>Planners in Tacoma, Washington have approved a new ordinance that allows small-scale microwineries to be legally operated out of the home.</p>
China Moves To Protect Farmland With Higher Taxes
<p>To stem the loss of farmland to development, the Chinese government is raising taxes on non-farmed arable land by 500%.</p>
Reorienting Suburbs Toward An Interdependent Future
<p>Created as a celebration of American individualism and consumerism, suburbs will need to reinvent themselves to successfully lead an interdependent world, according to this article from <em>Newsday</em>.</p>
Shifting Priorities In The Great Lakes
<p>Economic priorities in the Great Lakes are shifting away from heavy industrial uses to tourism and real estate development.</p>
GPS Finds Fastest Routes, But Roads Can't Handle Traffic
<p>GPS devices in Britain looking for the best routes possible are directing truck drivers through tiny towns without the proper road space and infrastructure to handle their loads. Some towns are thinking about requesting removal from the map.</p>
Japanese Urban Centers Fading In Rural Prefectures
<p>Smaller cities in rural areas of Japan are being gutted out, as big box centers continue to sprout up outside cities.</p>
Planners Object, But Courts Approve Housing Development
<p>When developers made plans for a housing development on land an Israeli kibbutz had to sell off, planners said the required rezoning was out of the question. But five years later and still without planners' approval, the courts have allowed project.</p>
Holding The Line On Miami-Dade's Urban Development Boundary
<p>Citing strained resources, Miami-Dade Mayor Carlos Alvarez has vetoed a number of development projects located outside of the County's ever-tenuous urban development boundary.</p>
...Because It's Called 'Lawndale', Not 'Concretedale'
<p>The Southern California city of Lawndale has passed tight restrictions that prohibit residents from paving their front yards with concrete -- an effort to reduce the amount of vehicles parked in front yards and fight what some call a "sea of gray."</p>
The Catalyst For Urban Renewal
<p>Urban cores have undergone a long period of depopulation and depression. But with cities across the country attempting to bring these areas back, a few simple strategies are laying the groundwork.</p>
The Two Faces of California's Upcoming Election Year
<p>In California, the 2008 election year may result in victories for two contrasting interest: those who want to limit eminent domain powers and those seeking increased regulation of land use, writes William Fulton.</p>
Tapping The Power Of The Desert Sun
<p>The European Union and the desert countries of Northern Africa may form a collaborative effort to harvest solar energy in the desert areas. The solar power effort could power about one-sixth of Europe if it goes through.</p>
Is The Gate Closing On Gated Communities?
<p>The luster seems to have come off of gated communities: not only is the market for them shrinking, but they are facing rates of crime and foreclosure no different from other forms of development.</p>
Commercial Developers Finding Value In Mixed Use
<p>A tax-increment financed mixed-use mall redevelopment is showing signs of success in suburban Salt Lake City, Utah, raising nearby property values and indicating a trend amongst commercial developers who are finding profit by mixing uses.</p>
BLOG POST
Planning Schools: To Rank, Or Not To Rank?
<p>Professor Lance Freeman's <a href="/node/28749">recent post</a> about Planetizen's rankings of graduate planning programs does an excellent job of summarizing some of the thorniest problems with school rankings. The editors of Planetizen certainly agree with Professor Freeman when he states that rankings cannot accurately predict whether a particular program will provide a particular student with the type of education he or she would deem best. There are far too many individual factors involved, and any student who makes their decision primarily on the basis of such rankings would be doing themselves a great disservice. This point is also the reason why most of the 142 pages of the <a href="/guide">2007 Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs</a> consist of detailed profiles of programs -- not rankings.<br /><br />However, we continue to believe, as Professor Freeman also acknowledges, that rankings do provide a useful measure of comparison for students who are evaluating a graduate program of study in planning -- something that is likely to be the largest single investment in their educational career. Therefore, we are planning to publish a new edition of the Planetizen Guide to Graduate Urban Planning Programs in the spring. In addition, we're working to improve our rankings process to help address some the concerns that Professor Freeman and others have raised.
A Killer View
<p>A Las Vegas homeowner has been convicted of killing more than 500 trees to improve his property's view of the famous Las Vegas Strip.</p>
Turning Abandoned Railways To Greenspace In Indiana
<p>The state of Indiana has announced plans to purchase more than 150 miles of abandoned railways, much of which is slated to become greenspace.</p>
Bikes on Trains: The Downside Of A Popular Program
<p>Caltrain's bicycle program has proven so popular that bike riders are regularly 'bumped', i.e they are left at the platform because the bike capacity has been reached, and relief doesn't appear to be forthcoming.</p>
Smith Gee Studio
City of Charlotte
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
City of Astoria
Transportation Research & Education Center (TREC) at Portland State University
US High Speed Rail Association
City of Camden Redevelopment Agency
Municipality of Princeton (NJ)
Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools
This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.
Planning for Universal Design
Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.
