The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Door Zone

Reactions to Cleveland's Backwards Bike Lane

A photo of a "backwards" buffered bike lane in Cleveland prompts commentary from the planning community. What is gained by separating bike lane and curb?

November 16 - People for Bikes

Microsoft, City of Bellevue Developing Tech to Predict—and Prevent—Bike Crashes

If it's successful, a public-private partnership between Microsoft and the city of Bellevue, Washington could produce Minority Report-style predicative capabilities to prevent bike crashes.

November 16 - GeekWire

Critics Find Diversity Setbacks in New Planning Accreditation Board Standards

The Planning Accreditation Board, the body tasked with the accreditation process of planning programs at both the graduate and undergraduate level, will update its standards over the next month.

November 16 - Next City

Anaheim, Home to Disneyland, Proving Popular for Short-Term Rentals

Anaheim is struggling to keep up with a glut of houses in residential neighborhoods being used as short-term rentals catering to Disneyland's crowds. The city is profiting, but neighborhoods, perhaps, are not.

November 16 - Los Angeles Times

High Hopes for a Renovated Vernon Park in Philadelphia

A once-neglected park is at the center of efforts to breathe new life into Germantown's business district.

November 16 - philly.com


Houston

On the Effect of Houston's Loose Land Use Regulations

A conversation with an architect yields insight into how Houston's pride in the lack of traditional land use regulation mechanisms has created the city as it exists today.

November 16 - OffCite

Google Bus Opponents Argue Need for CEQA Study in San Francisco Superior Court

On Friday, tech bus opponents took their case to court, arguing that the San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency must comply with the California Environmental Quality Act due to impacts including air quality and community displacement.

November 16 - San Francisco Examiner


East Berlin

Berlin Moves To Protect, Expand Affordable Housing

Berlin's Senate has approved a sweeping reform of the city's housing policy, limiting rents on close to 400,000 public housing units to no more than 30 percent of a household income.

November 16 - CityLab

US Highway 53 - Wisconsin

Wisconsin Goes Deeper in the Fiscal Hole to Fix Aging Roads

Wisconsin legislators have voted to continue steep borrowing to pay for needed road repairs, while calls to increase the state’s gas tax grow louder.

November 16 - Urban Milwaukee

Can California Kick the Oil Habit?

As the nation's third largest oil producer, California has a long history with the oil industry, yet it's also the birthplace of the American environmental movement. Lisa Margonelli makes the case for the Golden State reducing its oil addiction.

November 15 - Zocalo Public Square

Pennsylvania Launches 'Rapid Bridge Project' to Rebuild 558 Bridges in Three Years

Faced with more than 4,000 structurally deficient bridges, the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation has an innovative repair plan.

November 15 - Pittsburg Post-Gazette

North view

Guidebook: Lowering Barriers to Urban Farming

Urban agriculture has long been a staple of sustainable urbanism—in theory. Can policy changes help it become much more than that? This guidebook offers tactics and policies that planners can use to promote urban farms.

November 15 - APA-FIG

The Time the Google Self-Driving Car Got Pulled Over for Driving Too Slowly

Google's response to its self-driving car getting pulled over by police in California: " "Driving too slowly? Bet humans don't get pulled over for that too often."

November 15 - San Jose Mercury News

Why It's So Hard to Tell When a New York Train Will Arrive

The Atlantic has deep and detailed coverage of the expensive, obsolete, and decaying technology used by the New York subway system.

November 15 - The Atlantic

South Mall Parking Lot

On the Life Cycle of Suburban Malls

Using Greenwood, Indiana as an example, Eric McAfee discusses how the value of individual suburban malls depreciates over time. Shiny new shopping centers compensate for inevitable vacancies in older ones.

November 14 - Urban Indy

Los Angeles Grand Park

Op-Ed: Over-Regulation Makes Public Spaces Exclusionary

A pointed editorial decries the over-regulation that has followed the renaissance of public spaces in Los Angeles.

November 14 - Los Angeles Times

Santa Monica Bikes

Santa Monica Debuts GPS-Enabled Bikeshare

Serving beach-side Santa Monica and nearby Venice, Breeze Bikeshare equips its bikes with GPS tracking. The program claims to be more advanced than an L.A. Metro system set to debut in early 2016.

November 14 - Los Angeles Times

Morro Bay Could be Home to West Coast's First Offshore Wind Farm

If a Seattle company gets its way, in a few years there will be 100 floating wind turbines about 15 miles off San Luis Obispo County on the central California coast, generating about 1 gigawatt of electricity.

November 14 - San Jose Mercury News

New Orleans Residents Seeking Less Density From the Zoning Code

A zoning controversy in a neighborhood in New Orleans has locals questioning how well the city's new Comprehensive Zoning Plan reflects the city's Master Plan.

November 14 - The Lens

$1.75 Billion Bond Sale Delayed for All Aboard Florida

High-yield funds have less money to spend these days, leaving large infrastructure projects like the All Aboard Florida high-speed rail project waiting at the station.

November 13 - Bloomberg Business

Post News

Top Books

An annual review of books related to planning.

Top Schools

The definitive ranking of graduate planning programs.

100 Most Influential Urbanists

The who's who of urbanism, according to Planetizen readers.

Urban Planning Creators You Should Know

A short list of voices on social, video, and podcasting platforms.

Urban Design for Planners 1: Software Tools

This six-course series explores essential urban design concepts using open source software and equips planners with the tools they need to participate fully in the urban design process.

Planning for Universal Design

Learn the tools for implementing Universal Design in planning regulations.