The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>Sewer and water ratepayers in San Diego recognize that a rate hike is the only way to pay for replacing aging infrastructure.</p>

February 26 - San Diego Union Tribune

BLOG POST

<p>In spring 2007, the Texas Transportation Institute and its partners will release the newest version of the &quot;Mobility Report.&quot; This eagerly-awaited document will chronicle the worsening congestion in urban and suburban America. The report typically spawns a frenzy of media stories as folks eagerly peruse the ranking lists finding out just how their area did. While methodology tweaks and data issues might add a few wrinkles, no one will be surprised to see congestion worse than the prior report two years ago. Surprise, surprise!

February 25 - Steven Polzin

<p>Poverty rates in the United States are at a 32-year high, and a new study suggests that 58% of Americans will experience poverty at least once in their lives.</p>

February 25 - Common Dreams

<p>With the U.S. Decennial Census long form dropped in favor of the annual American Community Survey, the Census Bureau is busy preparing its one-page, six-question form. The task is not as easy as you'd think.</p>

February 25 - The Wall Street Journal

<p>Rising property costs and the threat of hurricanes are pushing more and more people out of the Florida Keys. The area experienced a 4% decline in population between 2000 and 2005, a trend expected to continue.</p>

February 25 - The Christian Science Monitor

<p>The all-powerful California Transportation Commission is besieged by attacks from both Northern and Southern California leaders who argue for a greater share of the landmark $20 billion transportation bond fund approved by voters last November.</p>

February 25 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>As part of its entrance into the European Union, Bulgaria was required to submit a list of territories it wanted to have protected. The list has fallen short of environmentalists' hopes, and gone too far in the minds of landowners and investors.</p>

February 25 - International Herald Tribune

BLOG POST

It has been a few years since my last trip to Europe, so perhaps I have selective memory. But I don’t recall having to compete with hundreds of cars or choke down exhaust while exploring the streets of London. I remember navigating through seas of people that filled the city’s squares, alleyways and boulevards.

February 24 - Diana DeRubertis

BLOG POST

<p>For those admitted to graduate planning programs in the U.S., March is the season of choices and decisions. Offers appear. Decision deadlines approach. Wait lists are formed. Even those who thought they knew what they wanted may be tempted to change their minds. Having been affiliated with seven vastly different planning programs, and having worked both as a faculty member and practitioner, I can attest that the choices aren’t simple. </p>

February 24 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

<p>Reading news stories about planning is crucially important to the worth of planners, developers, public officials, policy makers, and anyone else who cares about the way communities form and evolve. By knowing what&#39;s going on in other places, those concerned with cities and their development will be better informed to analyze and approach the planning issues facing their own communities.

February 24 - Nate Berg

<p>The Nation magazine investigates whether 100,000 FEMA-purchased trailers are releasing toxic fumes from materials used in their construction, and made worse by low quality standards as the trailers were constructed at breakneck speeds.</p>

February 24 - The Nation via Sun Herland

<p>Residents are upset that plans for a waterfront casino in Sparks, Nevada, were not revealed to the public early enough in the planning project. Many fear that by the time a public hearing is held, the citizen voice will have no power to make changes.</p>

February 24 - Reno Gazette-Journal

<p>A new report ranks 72 U.S. cities on their environmental quality, including such common indicators as pollution and drinking water quality, but also social aspects like public health, poverty, and quality of life. On top of the list: Fargo, ND.</p>

February 24 - El Paso Times

<p>The chair of L.A.'s municipally-owned Department of Water and Power outlines how the city will build up its portfolio of green power by 2010.</p>

February 24 - The Metro Investment Report

<p>The tremendous scale and pace of construction in China threatens to bulldoze over thousands of years of archaeological sites.</p>

February 24 - International Herald-Tribune

BLOG POST

<p>Hi - I&#39;m excited about the start of this blog! I am the co-founder and editor-in-chief of <a href="http://www.americancity.org" target="_blank">The Next American City</a>, where we promote socially and environmentally sustainable economic growth for American cities and suburbs in our magazine, events, and op-eds. Looking forward to the conversations over the coming months and years on this site, and I&#39;m always open to ideas for what I should discuss here, or what our team at TNAC, including our President Seth Brown, Publisher Michelle Kuly, Editor Jess McCuan, and everyone else that makes TNAC happen, should cover. </p><p>The national media is obsessed with the story of central cities coming back. Let&#39;s put aside whether this story is real or not (one on hand, I could show you similar clippings from any of the last five decades and suburban growth rates are still much higher; on the other hand, there does seem to be a slight resurgence in many cities lately that goes beyond what we&#39;ve seen in the past). My question - from a planning standpoint - is - who cares?<br />

February 23 - Anonymous

<p>The largest redevelopment project to date in New Orleans -- a city known worldwide for its music -- is aimed at bringing musicians back to town by giving them a place to live.</p>

February 23 - The Christian Science Monitor

<p>After the San Francisco Planning Department rejects several condo projects for the city's historic State Armory and Arsenal Building on the edge of the Mission District, an Internet pornography studio buys the building to make films.</p>

February 23 - The Wall Street Journal

BLOG POST

<p>About two years ago, after teaching a course at NYU&#39;s Interactive Telecommunications Program on &quot;Digitally Mediated Urban Space&quot;, I wrote an article for the architectural design journal Praxis that sought to do do two things: 1) make sense of the wide array of digital technologies that are being deployed in urban space, and 2) present a couple of places that I thought exemplified good and bad &quot;design&quot; of digital public spaces. </p><p>Recently, my research on context-aware computing - computing based on sensors and artificial intelligence - has led me to revisit this piece. Around the same time, I got a call from Lucas Graves, a friend who writes for Wired, and was doing a piece on technologies that are &quot;perpetually around the corner&quot;. Lucas was mainly interested in things like videophones, but it coincided with a turn in my research to the applications side of context-awareness: smart cities, smart places, smart homes, and smart objects. As an urban planner, I immediately gravitated to thinking about smart cities and smart places, but wondered in the back of my mind - is this something that is really happening, or just another one of those technologies that are perpetually around the corner?<br />

February 23 - Anthony Townsend

<p>Even with widespread demolition of old buildings to make way for modern towers, the city still has more art deco buildings than anywhere else on earth. A new photo book hopes to inspire the city to preserve its rich architectural legacy.</p>

February 23 - Time Magazine