The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Somerville, a 4.2-square-mile city outside of Boston, has successfully attracted young, educated people, but many worry what an influx of 'hipsters' will do to the small city.

August 31 - The Boston Globe

Changes to the criteria for evaluating applications for the federal New Starts program could have a significant impact on efforts to preserve and expand affordable housing in close proximity to transit.

August 31 - Rooflines

In an echo of the urban inversion confronting many of America's cities, London's phenomenal economic growth over the past decade has come at the expense of the city's suburbs, where unemployment and poverty are growing. Could this be a good thing?

August 31 - The Economist

Satirical newspaper The Onion has released the results of a nationwide poll to determine what the country's residents associate with the word "America". Rather than apple pie, the flag, or baseball, the resounding choice was a strip mall parking lot.

August 30 - The Onion

Non-profit group works to improve efficiency of local governments with technology hacks.

August 30 - Los Angeles Times

TOD as a planning tool is new to Indian cities, where the idea is being championed as a solution to congestion, environment quality and housing equity. Can this concept, developed for the North American city, be successful in Indian cities?

August 30 - The City Fix

In a collection of aerial photos comparing Cincinnati in the 1950s and today, one can see the disastrous effect that the nation's highway building frenzy had on the city's urban fabric.

August 30 - Urbanophile

By a 13-2 vote, the Los Angeles City Council lifted an unevenly applied decade-long ban on public murals on Wednesday, ending a dark period for a city that had long celebrated its social and cultural identity on public walls.

August 30 - Los Angeles Times

In his quest to leave no source of potential revenue unexplored, Emergency Manager Kevyn Orr is looking into selling Detroit's parking lots, meters and garages. The experiences of other cities who've trodden a similar path offer cause for caution.

August 30 - The Detroit News

Got road congestion? Pricing in the form of managed (don't call them HOT) lanes makes more sense than new construction, according to a panel of transportation experts led by HNTB Corp., reports James Bruckbauer of Michigan Land Use Institute.

August 30 - Michigan Land Use Institute

Despite a deep recession driven by a housing bust, the National Alliance to End Homelessness estimates that homelessness dropped by 17 percent from 2005 to 2012. This is astonishing news, right? So why aren't politicians trumpeting this decline?

August 30 - The Atlantic

Commenting on a recent drop in new-home sales, mortgage applications, and slowing home price increases, Goldman Sachs analysts are reporting that America's housing market has hit “a pothole.”

August 30 - Marketwatch

An improving housing market driven by investors has continued to drive down America's homeownership rate. In many neighborhoods, this means that renters now occupy a substantial amount of homes, distressing owner-occupiers.

August 30 - The New York Times

FEATURE

After a fertilizer plant explosion killed 15 people in West, observers blamed Texas's lax zoning regulations. Analysis of the locations of such plants across the Western U.S. seeks to determine whether Texas land use law is uniquely unregulated.

August 29 - Ken Steif

Since it opened last year, throngs of Angelenos have flocked to downtown's Grand Park. With those crowds now paying attention to the massive public buildings that form the park's boundaries, some are wondering if they need to be replaced.

August 29 - Los Angeles Downtown News

Kaid Benfield argues that amid our focus on placemaking, density, transit, and walkability we need to find room to talk about how to create sanctuaries, or peaceful places, 'where one can get away and be quiet and still'.

August 29 - NRDC Switchboard

Efforts to erect the world’s tallest building in Changsha are emblematic of a country that's constructing mega-towers like it's going out of style. But the backlash that the Sky City project has inspired may signal that tastes are actually changing.

August 29 - The New York Times

The USGBC's LEED rating system certainly has its share of warts. But in states across the U.S., the timber, plastics and chemical industries are challenging LEED requirements for insidious reasons: to protect the market for their products.

August 29 - The Atlantic Cities

A five-story, 60 ft. building proposal in Berkeley, Calif. that would house 70 'high end' micro-apartments ranging from 307 to 344 sq. ft. was presented to the city's Zoning Adjustment Board, but commissioners and neighbors were not impressed.

August 29 - Berkeleyside

All of that Congressional gridlock seems to be causing a lot of accidents. For the sixth year in a row, Washington D.C.'s drivers have come in last place in Allstate’s annual "America’s Best Drivers" report.

August 29 - The Washington Post