The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Dollar stores were already a presence in rural communities, but recession has caused dollar chains to ramp up development to keep pace with the public's growing need to stretch their paychecks. Urban communities aren't immune from chain creep either.

January 31 - Rooflines

France's Environment Ministry has decreed that as of July, all shops and offices in the country will be required to shut off their lights at night in order to save energy and “reduce the print of artificial lighting on the nocturnal environment.”

January 31 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

Shopping for bulky items can be one of the challenges of living car free. Here are three of the best ways I've found for dealing with the problem.

January 30 - Michael Lewyn

Only five months after the city passed the long-overdue update to its 1962 zoning code, City Council members are once again tinkering with the ground rules. Two months after moving to revise parking requirements, they're now focused on outreach.

January 30 - philly.com

In the wake of yesterday's surprisingly unsurprising announcement that U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood is stepping down, several reporters who focus on transportation issues have taken stock of his tenure.

January 30 - Transportation Nation

Kaid Benfield spotlights an innovative federal program that is "not very well known but deserves to be." The "Greening America’s Capitals" program aims to make America's state capitals showpieces for green infrastructure and green building practices.

January 30 - NRDC Switchboard

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency (SFMTA) would like to spend $200 million on improving the city's bike infrastructure over the next 5 years. How many miles of green paint can you get with all that green?

January 30 - The San Francisco Examiner

Writing in The Atlantic Cities, Chuck Wolfe provides ten illustrated examples of enjoyable environments that reflect an evolving recognition for the qualitative aspects of the urban experience.

January 30 - The Atlantic Cities

Patrick Kennedy proposes an elegant and cost-effective way to deal with Dallas's aging elevated freeway and the city's "massive pent-up demand for walkable urban housing" - tear the sucker down.

January 30 - D Magazine

States with Amtrak routes less than 750 miles (excludes lines within Northeast Corridor) will need to subsidize the budget shortfalls - the difference between fares and operating costs, or lose the route. States may cut some lines to prop-up others.

January 30 - The Wall Street Journal

Driven by "the fantasy of the almost-reality," hobbyist mapmaker Andrew Lynch gives new life to plans that never happened with hypothetical maps of the city that almost was.

January 30 - The Atlantic Cities

Homes in the Rockaways are being marketed and sold in the battered conditions that Hurricane Sandy left them, reports Elizabeth A. Harris. Existing residents view them as investment opportunities, but long-term market conditions are uncertain.

January 30 - The New York Times

The plan being proposed for a new bus-rapid-transit (BRT) line operating along busy Ashland Avenue would limit left turns and see the removal of a traffic lane. Will it survive "political vetting by Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s office"?

January 30 - WBEZ

FEATURE

The publication of the 24 chapter volume “The Emerging Asian City: Concomitant Urbanities & Urbanisms”, brings together some of the most significant emerging voices and thoughts on the forces and phenomenologies shaping urban Asia today.

January 29 - Jonathan Nettler

Could a recent article in The New York Times that profiled extreme bicycle commutes of up to 40 miles (one way) be harmful to the advancement of bicycle use among ordinary individuals?

January 29 - The Atlantic Cities

Montreal recently doubled a special tax assessed on non-residential downtown parking lots in the hopes of spurring residential development. But could the tax drive employers out to the suburbs?

January 29 - The Gazette (Montreal)

During his first State of the City address, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee put reforming MUNI - the city's "notoriously late and overcrowded public transit system" - at the top of his agenda.

January 29 - San Francisco Chronicle

Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood announced his pending resignation today - he will leave when a replacement has been confirmed, thus reversing an earlier, informal announcement he had made during an inauguration party on Jan. 21.

January 29 - Politico

CA Gov. Jerry Brown stated he had big plans in his State of the State speech on Jan 24. Thanks to temporary tax increases under Prop 30 and spending cuts, the budget is finally balanced. Yet he also called for 'fiscal constraint' - contradictory?

January 29 - Calbuzz

Efforts to transform L.A.'s maligned river into a public and economic asset got a boost last week with the establishment of a cross-disciplinary and cross-agency planning effort focused on an eight-mile stretch of the river.

January 29 - KCET Departures