The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Plan documents tend to be static, long, and—let's face it—boring. See how three planning organizations started thinking outside the PDF box to encourage more informed citizen participation.

February 15 - Engaging Cities

The state of Illinois is actively pushing two highway projects that might fail to pencil-out for users and for state taxpayers.

February 15 - Chi.Streetsblog

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Planning Commission Chair Carl Weisbrod while promising planning decisions that produce economic and social justice benefits. The question is to what degree planning can influence those outcomes.

February 15 - TransitCenter

Fools rush in, they say—with a little push from the Cambridge Traffic, Parking, & Transportation Department.

February 14 - Boston Globe

President Obama is in California today to pitch a $1 billion “resilience fund” to help communities dealing with the weather impacts of climate change—including the state’s current drought.

February 14 - The Hill

A valentine to ten cities around the world that are quietly creating urban paradigms to admire and emulate.

February 14 - Future Cities

Seattle’s massive highway tunneling project delays while solutions are sought for the mechanical error that brought the project’s massive drilling machine, Bertha, to a halt. Some are starting to examine life after Bertha.

February 14 - Seattle Transit Blog

At a Senate Environment and Public Works Committee meeting on Feb. 12, leaders from big labor, big business, AASHTO, and AMTRAK testified to the importance of keeping the Highway Trust Fund solvent. The first two specified increasing the gas tax.

February 14 - The Hill

A new report argues that city governments have some of the same incentives for de-emphasizing single-occupant commuters as colleges—such as attracting younger workers and freeing up land used for parking.

February 14 - Governing

Airbnb, arguably the most famous symbol of the sharing economy, has a court date with the New York State Attorney General in March. Meanwhile, a new report has evidence that Airbnb is fudging its numbers relevant to a key issue in the case.

February 14 - Skift

It’s Valentine’s Day, and it’s been a long winter in most parts of the country, so in the interest of staying warm and rightful pairs sticking together, here’s a website that lets people map the locations of lost mittens around New York City.

February 14 - TLDR

BLOG POST

Workers with long commutes are more likely to be be tired and stressed at work, and businesses are learning that they often make for less productive employees.

February 14 - Shane Phillips

A recent study called “America’s Rental Housing: Evolving Markets and Needs” by the Joint Center for Housing Studies at Harvard smashes myths about the rental market—of particular importance given the recent rise in rents around the country.

February 14 - Sustainable Cities Collective

BLOG POST

Are suburbanites less fearful of crime than city-dwellers? Maybe not.

February 13 - Michael Lewyn

Analysis of the USDA’s 2010 National Resources Inventory, which tracks land use, shows the growth rate of suburban sprawl peaking in the mid-1990s, declining by two-thirds since then, even through the most recent housing boom. How did that happen?

February 13 - Greater Greater Washington

An expansive new 3D film, shown recently at the Berlin Film Festival, collects a series of vignettes that anthropomorphize buildings like the Berlin Philharmonic, the National Library of Russia, and the Salk Institute.

February 13 - Variety

Around the country, highly educated, upwardly mobile Latinos are choosing urban settings in traditionally Latino neighborhoods over the suburbs. The effects of "gente-fication" ("gente" is Spanish for "people") are distinct from gentrification.

February 13 - Fox News Latino

It's not just residents who are suffering the country's highest rents. Non profits are suffering too. However, some are displaying adaptability and creativity in dealing with high rents, notes consultant David Prowler.

February 13 - UrbDeZine.com

If you need a little misery-loves-company commiseration on winter, Hazel Borys shares some pics from Winnipeg, the coldest big city on earth. How this winter city deals with the polar vortex is something we may all need to get used to.

February 13 - PlaceShakers

Google buses, Google ferries, and now, a Google hangar.

February 13 - San Jose Mercury News