The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The three new high speed rail lines are being called the biggest advancement of the United Kingdom's public transit system in more than 50 years.

March 15 - The Mirror

The costs of a new stadium built for this year's World Cup in Nelspruit, South Africa have heightened tensions between the city's poor and its leading officials.

March 15 - The New York Times

FEATURE

March 15 - Victor Gruen

Secretary LaHood praised bike advocates for their work promoting livable communities, and admitted that he and his wife are weekend bicyclists.

March 14 - Streetsblog

Philip Langdon compares the New Urban response to New Orleans and Haiti.

March 14 - New Urban News

President Obama has proposed eliminating federal subsidies for fossil fuels in 2011, but for now they're still a $72 billion piece of the pie. Solar, wind and geothermal? $12.2 billion.

March 14 - ecopolitology

Downtown Miami is on the upswing, with a new study showing that 74% of the condos built there since 2003 occupied. The market tanked in 2007 with the rest of the economy, but things are looking up.

March 14 - The Miami Herald

By 2032, the Thai government plans to have high-speed rail connected every region of the country. Construction is scheduled to begin next year.The first line is planned to connect Bangkok and Rayong, to the southeast.

March 14 - The Bangkok Post

The Infrastructurist examines a new infographic published by the World Health Organization (WHO) as part of their Global Status Report.

March 13 - The Infrastructurist

High housing prices cannot be blamed on land conservation efforts, at least not in Silicon Valley, is the word from researchers at Stanford University.

March 13 - Stanford University News

Laurence Gerckens brings us the ABCs of Planning. Today's letter is H, which stands for historic preservation. Gerckens brings us a brief, easy-to-understand history of the idea.

March 13 - Planning Commissioners Journal

California has just completed a landmark effort to assess the state's worst-case tsunami danger. Now emergency response officials, and even some planners, are considering how to keep the state's coastal populations safe.

March 13 - California Planning & Development Report

This research paper focuses on how land use planners are continuing to plan and develop cities and urban areas in ways that increase traffic and congestion.

March 13 - Science Direct

In the face of a recent surge in accidents, a small town in Romania has installed new traffic signs warning drivers about drunk pedestrians who may be laying in roadways.

March 12 - Telegraph

In what The Guardian calls "the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era," enormous swaths of African land is being sold to foreign countries seeking agricultural lands to feed their growing populations.

March 12 - The Guardian U.K.

Could Detroit turn its crumbling buildings into tourist attractions? The Urbanophile says there are worse ideas.

March 12 - The Urbanophile

San Antonio's River Walk is getting a new stretch of revitalized riverfront, but it's neither the utilitarian drainage ditch of the past nor the heavily sculpted tourist attraction of recent years.

March 12 - San Antonio Express-News

In response to a recent piece criticizing architecture critic Nicolai Ouroussoff, <em>Places Journal</em> Editor Nancy Levinson extends the criticism to the entire field, questioning whether its global scope is realistic.

March 12 - Places Journal

Approved plans for a 10,000 square foot mansion in Berkeley, California have been classified "green" by the city's environmental rating system. Neighbors and environmentalists, however, say the house is hardly an environmental model.

March 12 - The New York Times

The City of San Francisco has for years had a "Sunshine" ordinance, requiring that public agencies make their documents and proceedings available to the public. But recent reviews show that sunshine has been hard to find in the city of fog.

March 12 - San Francisco Bay Guardian