The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Danish Architect Bjarke Ingels discusses his new approach of "hedonistic sustainability... which improves the quality of life," as well as other ideas he often features in various projects.

October 25 - THE DIRT

Greenwich Village and Queens subway stations have had their trash bins removed for the past two weeks. This counterintuitive plan was initiated 3 months ago by officials due to an "epidemic of unsightliness and malodor," writes Michael Grynbaum.

October 25 - The New York Times

In this Washington Post blog, Brad Plumer writes on a New American Foundation report on rising gas prices and their disproportionate impact on the poor and middle class. Public policies intended to reduce fuel consumption, however, benefit the rich.

October 25 - The Washington Post - Blogs

As the campaign to replace the late (and city-boosting) Jack Layton as the leader of the New Democratic Party heats up, contender Paul Dewar has announced his intention to lead with a multi-pronged urban strategy.

October 25 - Huffington Post

Hurricane Irene brought flooding to the M and R subway lines in Queens, prompting the MTA to seek innovative ways to prevent it from happening again. Rogers Marvel Architects developed an innovative solution that also creates a bench above.

October 25 - The Architect's Newspaper

Washington DC's office of planning will begin restricting Georgetown's enrollment if the university does not manage to provide housing for 100% of its undergraduates by 2016.

October 25 - The Washington Post

As part of an "Occupy America" tour, Arun Gupta visits Occupy protests in three rust belt cities, and finds that the economic forces that unleashed the global recession long ago stripped these cities of their economic and social fabric.

October 25 - Salon.com

Tripoli Airport and Misrata hospital are the first specific projects to be named, as western governments begin to release frozen assets to the National Transition Government (NTI) and international corporations spot an opportunity.

October 25 - Building Design

After nine years of public outreach and study, transit was abruptly and secretively dropped from plans for the new Tappan Zee Bridge. Now, neither New York Governor Andrew Cuomo nor the US Department of Transportation will say why.

October 25 - Streetsblog

Elizabeth Farrelly suggests that happiness is only a possible side benefit to the true goal of cities, which is "...getting stuff done and, more importantly, generating the ideas that get stuff done."

October 24 - The Sydney Morning Herald

New Urbanist Peter Katz presents his guidelines for creating a popular urban park. First published in 1995, Katz's ideas still hold up.

October 24 - New Urban Network

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> With the proliferation of new media planning practitioners have new ways to find out about the continuing work of planning faculty members who have retired. Not all of them blog of course, but the list below demonstrates some of the variety of these efforts. </p>

October 24 - Ann Forsyth

BLOG POST

<p> Before moving to New York, I&#39;d viewed street design through a fairly simple lens: narrow streets good, wide streets bad.  By and large, I still hold this view.  But after living here for a few months, I have learned that not all wide streets are equally bad.   The wide roads of the South are generally terrible, but New York has made some of its wide streets a bit more pedestrian-friendly.  To see why, go to <a href="http://maps.google.com/help/maps/streetview/learn/using-street-view.html">Google Street View</a> and examine three addresses: 5019 U.S. 23 in Chamblee, Georgia, 770 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn&#39;s Crown Heights neighborhood, and 107-43 Queens Boulevard in my current Queens neighborhood of Forest Hills. </p>

October 24 - Michael Lewyn

The food truck phenomenon is here to stay and stimulating tangential industries that include truck outfitters, permit expediters, lawyers lobbyists, website designers, and marketing professionals.

October 24 - The Atlantic

Famed urbanist Jan Gehl looks back at the writing and thought on how people use the urban environment -- including his own -- over the past 40 years.

October 24 - Life & Urbanism

Shifting demographics combined with changes in lifestyle preferences and growing frustration at the limitations of auto-oriented living is leading to a shift away from car use and ownership, some experts say.

October 24 - The Globe and Mail

The logistics involved in maintaining the Occupy Wall Street protests turn out to be some of the very activities that homeless people have been banned from doing in most cities for years.

October 24 - Salon.com

Eric Loveday of AutoBlogGreen explains why we'll be seeing a lot more diesels in the U.S.: increased federal emission standards will only be met by increasing the number of diesel cars on the market.

October 24 - AutoBlogGreen

Michelle Bruch talks with placemaking expert Fred Kent about the makeover he helped orchestrate of Detroit's Campus Martius Park.

October 24 - YongeStreet

Jason Griffiths and Alex Gino set out in 2002 to document the unremarkable character of the American suburbs. 22,382 miles and 2,593 photographs later, they concluded that suburbia "is difficult to define."

October 24 - Design Observer