The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>Transit experts Jim Moore, Don Shoup, Joel Kotkin, Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris, Ted Balaker, Joel Reynolds and Brian Taylor all offer suggestions on how to affordably fix Los Angeles' traffic problems.</p>

April 17 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>At least for now, using solar panels to power your home may not help you save money.</p>

April 17 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> In my hometown—and yours, too, I&#39;m sure—a small, one-story house was for sale, and then it was gone. The guy who bought it promptly tore it down and then, because the new house he had designed was too big for the site, let the hole sit there for a year, a broken tooth in the 1950s neighborhood. Of course, the house he built was still too big for the lot, but there it stands, three feet from his seething neighbors: a McMansion. </p>

April 17 - Margaret Foster

The Sante Fe River in New Mexico has been rated the most endangered river in the nation by the environmental group American Rivers.

April 17 - NPR

<p>Housing activists and protesters have continued to occupy buildings in Brazil as they wait for long-delayed government funding for housing.</p>

April 17 - BBC

<p>Which of the largest 50 U.S. cities provide citizens with the highest percentage of power produced from renewable energy? SustainLane Government determined the percentage of each city's electricity that comes from renewables.</p>

April 17 - SustainLane Government

BLOG POST

I had heard stories about this the last time I visited Japan in 2004, but this month's Tokyo city briefing from <i>The Economist </i> brought this trend back to my attention. It seems retiring boomers are abandoning their suburban bedroom communities to return to the metropolitan core - presumably to be near friends, cultural attractions, and other amenities (health care? education?). I've seen rumblings of this as well in the New York metro area.

April 17 - Anthony Townsend

<p>Louisville has adopted a "complete streets" policy which makes the provision of sidewalks, bike lanes and bus stops mandatory. Neal Peirce discusses the plan in his column, and offers some international examples.</p>

April 17 - The Seattle Times

<p>This report from <em>NPR</em> looks at a Massachusetts school's efforts to build soccer fields in part of the forest Henry David Thoreau wrote about in his book Walden.</p>

April 17 - NPR

<p>An ambitious $1.5 billion mixed-use project announced recently in Austin, Texas, proposes to anchor a 681-acre development with sound stages and other media-focused infrastructure. Will this project die a slow death like similar efforts before it?</p>

April 17 - Austin American-Statesman

<p>Despite stunning similarities in property values, tax burdens vary greatly in southern Florida, causing fed-up residents to seek relief.</p>

April 17 - The Miami Herald

<p>The city of Tuscon, Arizona is considering adding new impact fees to cover the cost of municipal services, but the new fees might stymie growth and encourage sprawl.</p>

April 16 - Arizona Daily Star

<p>The controversial practice of demolishing all but the exterior of a historic building doesn't serve to preserve that past or encourage new architecture, argues architecture critic Blair Kamin.</p>

April 16 - The Chicago Tribune

<p>A consultant's report recommends Atlanta codify the protection of artists' spaces in new zoning. Many cities are trying to redress the "Catch-22" of gentrification -- the displacement of artists from neighborhoods they helped turn around.</p>

April 16 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

<p>California's Department of Transportation has resorted recently to forcing developers to pay impact fees to fund freeway projects, to the chagrin of developers, local governments, and taxpayer groups.</p>

April 16 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>Combining Google's satellite mapping technology and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's dearth of pollution and contamination data, new web applications let users map out toxic and contaminated sites.</p>

April 16 - The San Francisco Chronicle

<p>Away from New York City's gentrified neighborhoods, there exists the middle class, ethnically diverse, and incredibly unglamorous neighborhoods of Brooklyn's Jamaica Avenue.</p>

April 16 - The New York Times

FEATURE

April 16 - Andrea Broaddus

<p>How can the modern metropolis be a magnet for entrepreneurship and creativity?</p>

April 16 - The Washington Post Writers Group

<p>Market research shows that though buyers still have an advantage, the Massachusetts housing market will shows signs of stability over the next six to twelve months.</p>

April 16 - The Boston Globe