The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

In 2013, the city of Columbus left $8.3 million in property taxes on the table as part of a tax break intended to increase the number of people living downtown. How did it respond? By extending the tax break.

March 24 - The Columbus Dispatch

Despite its mostly sprawling conditions, San Jose has recently prioritized walkable, dense urban environments. But should the city focus its development downtown or build a connected network of urban neighborhoods?

March 24 - Silicon Valley Business Journal

In a pair of articles, The Hill's energy and environment blogger Timothy Cara looks at political efforts to increase natural gas exports to Europe on account of Russia's annexation of Crimea, part of Ukraine, and environmental groups opposed to it.

March 24 - The Hill

Chicago recently began construction on the $60 million Navy Pier Flyover—an elevated bike and pedestrian path built along Lake Michigan near the Navy Pier.

March 24 - Chicago Tribune

Despite installing many innovative traffic management schemes over the years, the 41 miles of highway between Fredericksburg, Virginia and Washington D.C. are snarled by some of the worst traffic in the country. Can HOT lanes change that?

March 24 - Atlantic Cities

A new book by Charles Montgomery makes the case that many of the best possible outcomes for the built environment require human interaction—whether commuting to work or walking around residential neighborhoods.

March 24 - The Globe and Mail

“A City of Neighborhoods,” a new exhibit at the Boston Public Library, uses maps to illustrate how waves of immigration shaped the city and its neighborhoods throughout the 20th century.

March 24 - Wired

Earlier this month, Portland’s TriMet restored high frequency bus service to ten bus routes around the city. Jarrett Walker makes the case that the frequency of service can make or break a city’s transit system.

March 24 - Human Transit

Thanks to the 2010 federal requirement of ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel and new Tier 4 emissions standards by the EPA, particulate emissions from non-road diesel engines, including agricultural and construction equipment, have been reduced by 99%.

March 24 - Environmental Health News

FEATURE

Neil Roberts shares details of Melbourne's Yarra Trams, which has exceeded its service delivery and punctuality goals by the use of intelligent transit technology like sensors, the tramTRACKER app, and mobile work stations for employees.

March 24 - Neil Roberts

The city of Youngstown, Ohio has lost 60 percent of its population since the 1960s. The Youngstown 2010 plan attempted to redevelop a new, smaller city, but how well has it accomplished its goals so far?

March 23 - Michigan Daily

Boston recently shut down one of its busiest transit hubs, the Government Center T Station for over-due renovations above and below the ground. The station was originally built in 1898, and without a major renovation since the 1960s.

March 23 - The Boston Globe

London’s contemporary affordable-housing crisis has revived a century-old idea: the garden city.

March 23 - Atlantic Cities

The federal investigation of Duke Energy's Feb. 2 coal ash spill sheds light not only on the company and its state regulator, but also on that of the Environmental Protection Agency and holds wider implications for the coal industry as a whole.

March 23 - The Wall Street Journal - U.S.

Tiny houses aren’t just for eco-warriors. They can also be a means for homeless and mentally ill individuals to reenter mainstream society.

March 23 - Grist

Hopes for New Jersey to be a national leader in offshore wind energy were dealt a setback when the state Board of Public Utilities rejected the financial plan of a 25-megawatt project proposed for a site three miles off the coast near Atlantic City.

March 22 - The North Jersey Record

Positively Cleveland, Northeast Ohio’s tourism bureau, has launched a new campaign, “This is Cleveland,” that takes a new tack in selling the region not for its orchestra and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but rather for its warts and all.

March 22 - James Brasuell

Lessons from a successful urban farming effort can be applied to achieve resource independence aside from just food.

March 22 - Architectural Review

The cautionary tale of “a very suburban kerfuffle” in Blaine, Minnesota: residents of a “large, multi-builder housing development” who once opposed a multi-family residential development in the neighborhood now lament a lack of retail.

March 22 - Streets.MN

A new web-based program, Global Forest Watch, provides access to almost real-time visualization of forests around the world.

March 22 - ASLA The Dirt