The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Following Hurricane Harvey, Houston's City Hall became flooded with four feet of water, rendering the building's electrical and mechanical equipment useless. Restoring power back to City Hall quickly was crucial in aiding the recovery efforts.

October 6 - Doggerel

It's still illegal to convert rental units into short-term rentals that act as a hotel business in Washington, D.C. A high-profile legal settlement will thus send a bumper crop of rental units back to the market.

October 6 - Greater Greater Washington

Utah's I-15 express lanes are suffering PM peak-hour congestion. The maximum charge is $1 per zone. The Transportation Commission will vote to double it, but the chair of a key legislative committee suggests charging "what the market will bear."

October 6 - The Salt Lake Tribune

A new map reveals the scale of the food desert challenge in Cleveland and environs.

October 6 - The Plain Dealer

Not only did Hurricane Maria destroy most of Puerto Rico's man-made infrastructure, it also defoliated the island's vast tropical forests, upsetting the forest ecology—in the short term.

October 6 - NPR

The National Physical Activity Plan Alliance gave the United States an F for walkability because of its lack of pedestrian infrastructure.

October 6 - Fast Company

Sidewalk Labs LLC, a unit of Google's parent company Alphabet Inc., has been awarded a high-profile opportunity to test ideas for "reimagining cities from the Internet up," as its company mantra says. The city of Toronto will be its testing ground.

October 6 - The Globe and Mail

A study of British cities find people living in dense urban cores are less likely to struggle with obesity and more likely to exercise—signs of higher quality of life—than their counterparts in suburban environments.

October 6 - Reuters via The Guardian

LEGO fans rejoice! Bjarke Ingels Group has made the LEGO house of your dreams a full-sized reality, and it's stocked full of LEGOs.

October 6 - The Architect's Newspaper

It isn't always easy, especially for politicians and engineers, but there are proven ways to save a floundering bus system.

October 5 - Greater Greater Washington

More and more communities are including historic preservation in plan efforts. But what is Historic Preservation and what does planning for it mean? In this episode, John Smoley explains.

October 5 - PlanIt - Metropolitan Council

It's a small step forward on a portion of the Bx6 bus line in Bronx, but the center-running bus is coming to more corners of New York City soon.

October 5 - Spectrum News

The proposed widening of I-94 in Milwaukee is a $1.1 billion chunk of a $6.4 billion road widening program in the region. The NAACP sued the project as a matter of environmental justice.

October 5 - Wisconsin Gazette

Streetsblog digs into the literature on streetcars and finds evidence that the transit mode du jour was never intended to benefit transit users.

October 5 - Streetsblog USA

A new law could enable affordable housing projects, if they meet the specified criteria, to bypass the public process that so often blocks their approval.

October 5 - Los Angeles Daily News

A website called status.pr is keeping residents and concerned observers apprised of progress in the recovery of the island's critical infrastructure.

October 5 - The Washington Post

Is Taco Bell finally prepared to bring to fruition the future predicted in the 1993 movie Demolition Man?

October 5 - Food & Wine

Michigan to grant amnesty to 300,000 drivers whose licenses were taken from them because they were too poor to pay the "Driver Responsibility Fee."

October 5 - Slate

BLOG POST

Recently released travel data show Americans returning to their cars as the economic recovery deepens. Alternative forms of transportation are not attracting new users.

October 4 - Steven Polzin

The American Planning Association's annual list celebrates the best urban planning and design from around the country.

October 4 - American Planning Association