The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

lego new york

Love Legos? Looking for a Job?

This sounds like a dream for a lot of Planetizen readers: building models for Legoland.

January 24 - Quartz

Who Killed the Electric Car (in Georgia)?

Until this past summer, the Atlanta metro region was ranked second in electric car use in the United States. The generous state tax credit of $5,000 made electric vehicles (EVs) particularly attractive. But what happens when the credit is withdrawn?

January 24 - Marketplace

Newark Trying to Make the Most Out of Port Newark

A lack of a master plan for Port Newark is one of the reasons the city of Newark is looking to improve on the leadership of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey.

January 24 - The Record

12 Seattle Schools to Get the Safe Routes to School Treatment in 2016

The Urbanist takes a close look at the first of 12 Safe Routes to School projects scheduled for Seattle schools this year.

January 23 - The Urbanist

Nova Scotia Cracks Down on Jaywalkers—Advocates React As Expected

The provincial government has taken draconian measures on jaywalkers in an effort to curb pedestrian injuries and fatalities.

January 23 - BuzzFeed News


GM Announces Renovation of Detroit's Iconic Renaissance Center

Detroit's most iconic building, the Renaissance Center, will soon get a major upgrade.

January 23 - Detroit Free Press

Satirical Ad Campaign Pitches Belgian Traffic Jams as World Heritage Sites

The "war on cars" and its pushback has a achieved a singular pitch in Belgium, where the national rail service has canvassed the country with a satirical ad campaign excoriating the country's horrible congestion.

January 23 - The Wall Street Journal


Braddock Pennsylvania

Managing Abandoned Homes in North Braddock

The usual litany of Rust Belt woes hit North Braddock, Pennsylvania particularly hard. The Pittsburgh suburb has shed two-thirds of its population and is burdened with 350 abandoned properties.

January 23 - Belt Magazine

Lancaster Central Market

Imagining the Future Urban Food Market

Public food markets can be key centers of urban commerce and social life. Late last year, a brainstorming event in London considered how they might evolve to accommodate modern lifestyles and technologies.

January 22 - Nesta

D.C. Metro Will Be Closed for Commuting, But Capitol Hill Will Be Open for Sledding

A large winter storm is bearing down on the East Coast, prompting advanced preparations by local officials.

January 22 - The Washington Post

Students Submitting Ideas for the Hyperloop

As a part of a competition sponsored by SpaceX, university students and independent engineering teams are building scale-model Hyperloop pods.

January 22 - FutureStructure

Data Plus Community: A Winning Formula for Green Infrastructure

These days, Big Data is the topic at hand, but Arup's Vincent Lee says data analysis can only go so far. He uses his work on the New York Rising Community Reconstruction Program to illustrate why a "human element" is crucial to finding solutions.

January 22 - Doggerel

Op-Ed: Billionaire's Ballot Initiative in San Diego Trades Revitalization for Tourism

The unlikely alliance of a ballpark billionaire, tax watchdog, and environmentalists in San Diego circulate a planning ballot initiative that makes an all-too-familiar sacrifice: urban neighborhoods.

January 22 - UrbDeZine

Odd-Even Licensing Worked, So Why Is New Delhi Halting It?

Reporting from the world's most polluted capital, Julie McCarthy speaks with Ari Shapiro on NPR's "All Things Considered." McCarthy talks glowingly about how successful the two-week trial went in reducing pollution and congestion even more so.

January 22 - NPR

Sutro Tower

BLOG POST

A Year's Worth of Music About Places

Musicians from all varieties of musical genres spent the past year pondering, celebrating, and complicating our perception of places.

January 22 - James Brasuell

New Studies Reveal 5 Reasons Policymakers Should Prioritize Local Business in 2016

A raft of recent research finds that small, local businesses are critical to overcoming many of our biggest challenges. This article rounds up the new studies and what they say about why local business should be a focus of planning in 2016.

January 22 - Institute for Local Self-Reliance

The Dutch Junction Explained

Cars and cyclists have issues at intersections. A new type of intersection design from the Netherlands offers improved protection to cyclists. The solution is based on the four islands near each corner of the intersection.

January 22 - Huffpost Good News

Gentrification

Friday Funny: A History of Political Cartoons on the Subject of Gentrification

Cartoonists have been satirizing the issue of gentrification for almost a century. Witness the evolution of gentrification political cartoons in an article by The Guardian.

January 22 - The Guardian Cities

Miami Highway

On the Surprising Efficiency of Big City Commutes

Logically we might assume that as cities grow larger, commutes get harder. It can certainly feel that way. But research points to structural factors that actually make commuting in big cities more efficient.

January 21 - CityLab

Demographic Changes Spell Trouble Ahead for Auto Industry

It's not only young adults who are delaying in getting drivers licenses, but a drop in licenses among all age groups according to a new analysis of license data from 1983-2014 by the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute.

January 21 - The Fiscal Times

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Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

Top Schools

The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

100 Most Influential Urbanists

The who's who of urbanism, according to Planetizen readers.

Urban Planning Creators You Should Know

A short list of voices on social, video, and podcasting platforms.

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.