The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Today, Kansas City becomes the first Midwestern city to run modern streetcar service.

May 6 - Kansas City Star

Erie, Pennsylvania and Canton, Ohio have faced the challenges of shrinking populations and fewer job prospects, but new comprehensive plans in each city may provide a pathway to resurgence

May 6 - The Canton Repository

County commissioners had approved a one-cent sales tax measure to improve roads and transit throughout the county, but MPO members, dominated by city representatives, prefer an undefined infrastructure tax with a majority of funds returned to cities.

May 6 - Sun Sentinel

An op-ed by Mikael Colville-Andersen of Copenhagenize Design Company.

May 6 - Cities of the Future

The idea that proximity to transit equals higher land values doesn't tell the full story. According to this study, a variety of other factors must be in place to achieve the desired effect.

May 6 - CityLab

As a nascent tech economy tests the waters, Reno's Vice Mayor spearheads an effort to equitably clear out blight and revisit the purpose of the city's downtown.

May 6 - Next City

BLOG POST

With the constellation of civic technologies, like online community engagement platforms, growing quickly, it's important to recognize the positive and negative consequences of new practices in community engagement.

May 6 - Dave Biggs

What was once a "pipe dream" will soon be reality.

May 6 - The Wall Street Journal

A fun, if not conclusive, exercise in layering the country's most famous transit map with data from the real estate market.

May 5 - DNAInfo

The ongoing build out of carpool lanes in Los Angeles County continues. A five-mile stretch of I-10 in the eastern portion of the county—a commuter corridor and a corridor frequented for getaways from L.A.—will be adding new capacity.

May 5 - KPCC

A Boston Globe columnist met the news that the city would reduce speed limits to 20 mph on some residential streets with scorn and snark.

May 5 - The Boston Globe

The power of modern parking technology is on display on the streets of Pittsburgh.

May 5 - Target 11

Why are folks fleeing from the city and the state in record numbers? Is domestic migration to blame for the Chicago region's population loss last year of over 6,000 and the state's loss of over 22,000 people?

May 5 - Chicago Tribune

Cities and fire departments around the country are struggling with the sudden explosion of start-ups promising to make your life easier by delivering gasoline straight to your vehicle.

May 5 - Bloomberg

A development proposal for a new NBA arena, in the works since 2012, was dead on arrival to the Seattle City Council. The decision surprised even project opponents.

May 5 - The Seattle Times

According to a new report from the Center for American Progress, technology network companies like Uber and Lyft offer a unique opportunity for low-income users to connect with transit routes and on to greater economic opportunities.

May 5 - Center for American Progress

Contracts for deed are gaining popularity at investment firms that scooped up swaths of foreclosed properties during the Great Recession. The risk for buyers, however, smacks of the same misdeeds that created that historic crisis in the first place.

May 5 - The New York Times

Google Maps has changed a lot since its quick rise to ubiquity. An intrepid blogger digs into the nitty gritty of how the mapping platform has changed, and the consequences of Google's cartography for how the public perceives the world.

May 5 - Justin O'Beirne

A timely piece in The Guardian's City series looks at the demise of streetcars in Los Angeles, beginning with the Great American Streetcar Conspiracy. If only it was that simple.

May 4 - The Guardian Cities

The way we measure the success of bikeshare systems could be giving us the wrong idea about their impacts, and about the transportation needs of low-income areas.

May 4 - NextCity