The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>While mega-condo developments are enlivening districts in and around Miami's urban core, a long moribund downtown business district struggles to keep up. Many hope that small improvements will make a big difference in the area's quest for vitality.</p>

June 2 - The Miami Herald

<p>Houston tops the list, which includes Des Moines, Boise and Omaha. Yeah, we want to see their criteria too...</p>

June 2 - Kiplinger's

<p>Freight trains already face serious traffic on the nation's network of rails. If nothing is done, insiders project disaster in the near future.</p>

June 1 - Associated Press

<p>Students in Ohio State University's City and Regional Planning department worked closely with the Franklinton neighborhood in Columbus to create a new vision for the community.</p>

June 1 - Columbus Alive

<p>A developer has plans for a new Palestinian city in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, which he says would be the first new city in the West Bank in thousands of years. But he is still awaiting approval on a crucial road.</p>

June 1 - NPR

<p>Downtown Knoxville has seen many improvements in recent years. This column calls on the city to be careful how it lets private interests use downtown's new public spaces.</p>

June 1 - Metro Pulse

<p>Big box stores are following their customers into downtowns, and stores like Circuit City and Target are retooling for density.</p>

June 1 - Architectural Record

<p>Rising gas prices have caused a big increase in transit ridership in Loudoun County, Virginia, where officials are looking to expand their bus fleet and capacity to handle the jump in demand.</p>

May 31 - The Washington Post

<p>Waynesville, North Carolina Mayor Gavin Brown is forced to give up on pedestrian-friendly design to save potential jobs from Best Buy.</p>

May 31 - The Smoky Mountain News

<p>Americans are notoriously bad at navigating European-style traffic circles, but it seems Canadians are also confounded.</p>

May 31 - The Edmonton Sun

<p>Portland, famed for its progressive policies and smart growth, is facing criticism that the same growth they are applauded for is squeezing other groups out- particularly African-Americans.</p>

May 31 - The New York Times

<p>Transit ridership is spiking across the country as gas prices go up. Is this a tipping point for America's car culture?</p>

May 31 - The Philadelphia Inquirer

<p>A punch was thrown and hair was pulled at a recent meeting of the Guilford, Maine, Historical Society after tension arose over the removal and display of historic photos from the town museum.</p>

May 30 - Bangor Daily News

<p>At the World Science Festival in New York, visions of future cities mix the usual Blade Runner-esque architecture with abundant greenery.</p>

May 30 - Tim Halbur

<p>Railroads are overcoming decades of resistance from environmentalists by touting their greener aspects.</p>

May 30 - Wall St. Journal

<p>"Honey from the Hood" is one of the home-grown prodcuts from a Kensington neighborhood garden. To avoid soil contamination from this former industrial site, plants are grown in raised beds or hydroponically.</p>

May 30 - The New York Times

<p>City commits to adding over 450 miles of new bikeways/lanes linking neighborhoods, parks, downtown, and employment centers over the next 20 years and making an initial investment of $20 million.</p>

May 30 - The Columbus Dispatch

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">Randal O’Toole’s recent policy study from the Cato Institute, “</span><a href="http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=9420"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman; color: #800080">Roadmap to Gridlock</span></a><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">” is s worthy read for <strong>all</strong> professional planners, no matter what their ideological or professional stripe. Undoubtedly, most planners probably consider someone who maintains a blog called the “</span><a href="http://www.ti.org/antiplanner/"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman; color: #800080">Antiplanner</span></a><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">” more of a bomb thrower than a serious policy analyst. But this dismissive attitude throws an awful lot of good work by the road side, and a good example of that is O’Toole’s “Roadmap to Gridlock.”

May 30 - Samuel Staley

<p>In this guest column, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels, and King County Executive Ron Sims argue that Seattle needs to find a creative solution to the problem posed by its aging inner-city freeway.</p>

May 30 - The Seattle Times

BLOG POST

<p> America is facing more than just gasoline price inflation. The contemporary media is overwhelmed with stories on the impacts of higher fuel prices. The fingers are pointing in every direction. Planners are proposing everything from 50 year transit plans to build a handful of rail lines to forecasting a radical transformation of urban form and travel behavior. After exhaustive research to understand consumer responses to higher energy prices the analysis is complete and the results are in. </p>

May 30 - Steven Polzin