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<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font face="Times New Roman" size="3">Over the last few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to attend public meetings in Europe and the American South. I find public meetings to be an entertaining challenge. Let’s face it, a public meeting is always a gamble. You’re at the mercy of whoever shows up and whatever they perceive about the project. You have to think on your feet and make quick decisions to guide the process, without looking like I’m-in-control-here-Alexander-Haig.</font><font face="Times New Roman" size="3"> </font> </p>

June 25 - Barbara Faga

<p>A powerful home builders lobby in Oregon helped push a bill through the state legislature that some say threatens the urban growth boundary for the city of Eugene, and essentially opens the flood gates for sprawl in the area.</p>

June 25 - Eugene Weekly

<p>A formerly crime-ridden public housing project has been redeveloped as a HUD Hope VI project. Many see as a successful turnaround, bringing in subsidized renters and buyers as well as market-rate homeowners.</p>

June 25 - The New York Times

<p>Much has been made recently about how U.S. municipal and state governments aren't waiting for the federal government to act on climate change. Now it appears that these efforts can't succeed without Washington.</p>

June 25 - The Globe & Mail

<p>Amid revelations that San Francisco City government had been spending almost half a million dollars a year on bottled water, the mayor has instituted a ban that would require all government water use to come straight from the tap.</p>

June 25 - The San Francisco Chronicle

<p>The Minneapolis City Council has proposed measures that would limit the size of new houses in the city -- a move targeting oversized 'McMansion' homes that already account for about 1% of the housing stock.</p>

June 25 - Minneapolis-St. Paul Star Tribune

<p>With a favorable federal tax incentive, more and more people are donating land in the form of conservation easements -- agreements that set aside the land and prevent future development.</p>

June 24 - The New York Times

<p>Once considered "sprawl" by Londoners, the city's row houses now form the essence of the city. Are attacks of sprawl in the US built on "an extremely shaky foundation of class-based aesthetic assumptions and misinformation?"</p>

June 24 - Forbes

<p>Drivers are increasingly looking to save not only time but also gas money by utilizing high occupancy toll lanes in cities that have implemented tolls.</p>

June 24 - The Wall Street Journal

<p>Architype profiles 8 new and renovated urban public libraries in the words of their design teams.</p>

June 24 - ArchiType Review

<p>In Boston's Fort Point Channel district, redeveloping historic warehouses into luxury residences is easier said than done.</p>

June 24 - The Boston Globe

<p>Now 50 years old, BART looks to the future with a 50-year plan for vast system improvements and expansions throughout the Bay Area including a new transbay tube between Oakland and San Francisco, and an East Bay station in downtown Martinez.</p>

June 23 - The San Francisco Chronicle

<p>Downtown Los Angeles has long stood in for other cities in Hollywood movies. But the area's new burgeoning residential population is clashing with movie makers over filming.</p>

June 23 - Variety

<p>Citing the need for larger battle spaces for military exercises, the U.S. Army has announced plans to acquire up to 5 million acres to expand its bases.</p>

June 23 - USA Today

<p>Successful recording artists Harry Connick Jr. and Branford Marsalis teamed up with Habitat for Humanity to develop a neighborhood specifically for the city's musicians.</p>

June 23 - Architecture Record

<p>After pursuing a single-player, single-project strategy for decades, Detroit seems to have found a winning recipe for redevelopment with its new RiverWalk, which stressed regional cooperation from various public, private and non-profit organizations.</p>

June 23 - The Detroit Free Press

<p>A single parking space in a small beachside community in England has been put on sale for nearly $50,000, twice the town's average yearly salary. But some say the price is not unreasonable.</p>

June 22 - BBC

<p>Author Robert Bruegmann and activist Gloria Ohland continue their week-long debate on planning issues. Today's topic is mass transit and the automobile.</p>

June 22 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>Once a month, a Minnesota drug store transforms itself into a neighborhood town hall meeting place where Democratic candidates vying for nearly any Minnesota office come to discuss and debate issues with the people they look to represent.</p>

June 22 - NPR

<p>The Oregon Legislature has passed a bill that will increase penalties to drivers who carelessly injure or kill pedestrians, cyclists, and other "vulnerable" road users. Convicted offenders could face a one-year license suspension.</p>

June 22 - The Oregonian