The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

As the Commonwealth Games get underway in New Delhi, India, locals are upset that officials have made efforts to hide slum areas from the view of visitors.

October 5 - Los Angeles Times

Continuing its exposé of California redevelopment agencies, The L.A. Times uncovers that $700 million meant for affordable housing across the state was spent without a single unit being built.

October 4 - The Los Angeles Times

In Lowell, Massachusetts, planner Jeff Speck painted a picture for locals of a transformed city that capitalizes on the strengths of the city to move forward with a greater vision.

October 4 - The Lowell Sun

A new law in New York State requires state agencies to form smart growth advisory panels to determine whether proposed infrastructure projects meet smart-growth principles.

October 4 - City Newspaper

'Doubling up', when multiple families live under one roof to save money, is nothing new - it increases when economic times are difficult, especially with extended families. However, the Census reports that adults aged 35+ now exceed younger groups.

October 4 - NPR

In one of the most remarkable spurts of renewable energy investment in the U.S., six solar plants have been approved in six weeks in the California desert totaling almost 3 gigawatts. More are on the way, including new Stirling dish technology.

October 4 - Grist

FEATURE

The latest in a series of academic challenges to the New Urbanism turns out to be weak in all the areas that matter most, argues author Michael Mehaffy.

October 4 - Michael Mehaffy

A Columbia professor finds an obscure 1856 document that created the legal precedents that allowed the United States to seize and hold islands, and it all ties back to bird poop.

October 4 - CABINET

Rick Wright is the Executive Director of MainStreet Oceanside, and is attending the California Downtown Association conference. But Rick also edits MiceChat, a blog for Disney obsessives, and this week he features Main Streets, Disney and otherwise.

October 4 - MiceChat

Paul Goldberger pays Las Vegas' CityCenter a visit, and wonders how much different it really is from a fake Paris and the Luxor Pyramid.

October 4 - The New Yorker

WebUrbanist looks at 12 ambitious skyscraper proposals that have stalled out, from a tower planned for Dubai's man-made Palm Islands to a Dublin tower proposed by the band U2.

October 4 - WebUrbanist

Cyclist Rachel Brown put out a video recently to prove that bike lanes make her commute more dangerous, not less, because they create a false sense of security. Streetsblog reacts.

October 4 - YouTube

Most of the bullets made for WWI and II came out of the ground under Picher, Oklahoma. The minerals ran out in 1970, and the OK government bought out residents of the city to get them to leave. A handful of people stayed.

October 3 - Wired

Earlier this year, The Nation uncovered that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) holds people in 186 under-the-radar "subfield offices," which the less generous might call "secret immigration detention centers."

October 3 - Utne Reader

We've been measuring traffic congestion all wrong, a new report shows, and that's been making more highways look like the solution to long commutes. They're not.

October 3 - Streetsblog

Because of their broad appeal, diverse uses, and heavy programming, parks may do more for cities than the performing arts centers of the 1980s and the sports venues of the 1990s have accomplished, says JoAnn Greco.

October 3 - The Washington Post

Data from the Census shows that 36.7% of U.S. households pay more than 30% of their pretax income on housing, an increase of 1.5 million since 2007.

October 3 - The Wall St. Journal

The Vdara Hotel at CityCenter, designed by architect Rafael Vinoly, has an unforeseen side effect: its curving shape captures and focuses the hot Las Vegas sun, heating up visitors below like bugs under a microscope.

October 2 - BLDGBLG

Last year Toronto became the first North American city to mandate green roofs on all new residential, commercial and institutional buildings larger than 21,500 square feet. Now it has created a 118,000 square foot example on top of the City Hall.

October 2 - Metropolis Magazine

Chemical engineers at MIT were recently able to create solar energy that is 100 times more concentrated than that created by a conventional photovoltaic cell. The secret? Carbon nanotubes.

October 2 - Green Muze