The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel proposed an expansion of the city's Downtown Zoning District this week. The changes would allow taller buildings in a larger swath of the city.

February 19 - Chicago Tribune

The Congressional Budget Office takes aim at transportation funding and spending. It notes with alarm a $143 billion federal subsidy since 2008 and recommends charging motorists directly via vehicle-miles-traveled fees and road tolls.

February 19 - Congressional Budget Office

A recent unofficial tally on Yelp found that 20 of the 70 Boston dive bars listed on the site had recently closed. The Boston Globe examines the trend.

February 19 - The Boston Globe

The bloated cost of housing in Vancouver and Toronto has raised concerns among market analysts about a potential correction. Presumably, people in Canada are also worried about the price of housing.

February 19 - The Vancouver Sun

A longtime Los Angeles journalist has joined the cause of a sweeping anti-growth initiative that has city leaders on high alert.

February 19 - The Planning Report

Flint, Michigan is not an anomaly.

February 19 - TomDispatch

Last week, I submitted the following letter to the editor of the Los Angeles Times in response to a vicious, and more importantly, extremely misleading op-ed that decried inclusionary housing as a development killer.

February 19 - Shelterforce/Rooflines

A humorous campaign ad targets Donald Trump on the issue of eminent domain.

February 19 - The Washington Post

Photographer and architect Lars Mortensen captured the new face of urbanization in Gurgaon, a suburb of New Delhi. The scales involved are unprecedented, and rich and poor live in close proximity.

February 19 - Wired

FEATURE

Knee-jerk, ideological reactions to the California housing crisis rest on faulty arguments and threaten to cheat the state out of workable solutions.

February 18 - Eric Panzer

A vote by the city of Cincinnati's Historic Conservation Board, of all things, would prioritize parking over historic integrity.

February 18 - Urban Cincy

Mayor de Blasio wants to build a $2.5 billion, 17-mile Brooklyn-Queens streetcar (BQX). Emma G. Fitzsimmons of The New York Times suggests he look for tips across the River—not the East but the Hudson, at NJ Transit's Hudson-Bergen Light Rail.

February 18 - The New York Times

In this era of increased inequality, socially-blind urban planning is morally questionable. Specifically, on the issue of homelessness in America, there are three problems to which planners need to pay particular attention.

February 18 - Shelterforce/Rooflines

The benefits of diverse classroom settings are well established. How then to protect diversity in schools when the surrounding neighborhood is quickly becoming homogenous?

February 18 - The New York Times

The new director of the Los Angeles Department of City Planning arrives at a pivotal moment for planning in the city, as countywide investment in public transit is blowing up and the flames of old development debates are being fanned.

February 18 - The Planning Report

"Next Stop Equity" evaluates the fairness of public transit service allocation and pricing in the Toronto, Canada region, and recommends policy reforms to better achieve social equity objectives.

February 18 - York University

BLOG POST

Summarizes Justice Scalia's most important Takings Clause decisions.

February 18 - Michael Lewyn

With a multitude of new high-end apartment complexes coming online, Houston residents are reaping the rewards of lowered rents as landlords struggle to fill vacancies due to a slowing oil economy.

February 18 - Houston Chronicle

A 10-minute commute to lower Manhattan has made this once dingy city into the fastest growing in the Garden State. Yet from an historic perspective, Jersey City was a "shrinking city," not unlike Detroit or Youngstown, until 25 years ago.

February 18 - The New York Times - Real Estate

Electricity costs in California have risen more than $2 billion from October 2011 to September 2015, according to a new report studying the effects of California's historic drought.

February 17 - KPBS