The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Public transit that serves rural communities is no less essential to the everyday needs of their users as those systems that serve cities. So, why do some states seem so eager to cut subsidies to rural transit providers?

July 2 - Rooflines

While it may not have the world's highest absolute property values, Beijing has the highest imbalance between housing prices and incomes. Gwynn Guilford examines why this is problematic for the country's economic and social wellbeing.

July 2 - Quartz

A 2.7% increase on Ohio Turnpike Tolls and the new bonds that revenue will generate will not be enough to repair Ohio's aging road and bridge network, so a task force will recommend strategies - one of which must be elimination of the gas excise tax.

July 2 - The Plain Dealer

BLOG POST

Tesla has just disclosed the first fatal crash of a driver using its "Autopilot" system. Tesla should be concerned about the question of who's liable, and we should all be concerned about the wider consequences of this tragic event.

July 2 - Scott Le Vine

Within a few decades, explosive population growth in West Africa will create an urbanized area similar in size to America's eastern seaboard between Boston and D.C., "only far more populous." At one pole is Lagos, a "powerful new city-state."

July 2 - The Atlantic

Hazel Borys concludes her whirlwind European travelog. This week: a look at the DNA of Paris, and how to replicate it elsewhere.

July 2 - PlaceShakers

President Obama recently unveiled his 21-page framework for tackling climate change. But for some economists, that's twenty pages too many. A tax on carbon emissions is a simple, elegant, and relatively painless way to reduce emissions, they believe.

July 2 - NPR

A narrow approach to land use policy makes it difficult for communities to assess, and consider, the full impact of new big-box stores. But on Cape Cod, a regional planning framework allows the hidden consequences of big boxes to inform decisions.

July 2 - Grist

Seeking to maximize the power of the Internet to expand public outreach efforts, a plethora of engagement platforms have proliferated in recent years. Government Technology looks at five of the most promising new models of civic engagement.

July 2 - Government Technology

Move over Amsterdam. A new study of London's road use patterns has found that bicycles account for 24 percent of all road traffic during the morning commute. At nearly a fifth of the areas monitored, bikes actually outnumbered other vehicles.

July 1 - London Evening Standard

Across America's Midwest, resident revolts have challenged the traditional DOT orthodoxy of continuous highway construction. The most recent battleground is St. Louis, where a growing movement is protesting a highway project first conceived in 1957.

July 1 - DC.Streetsblog

For a possible answer, look to Mackinac Island, Michigan, where cars have been banned for 115 years. Does chaos ensue when the island's population grows to 15,000 during the summer tourist season? Not quite, says Stephen Messenger.

July 1 - Treehugger

With the number of serviceable trains dwindling the Sydney Monorail is being scrapped.

July 1 - The Sydney Morning Herald

In its entry for a competition hosted by Swedish building society HSB Stockholm, C.F. Moller Architects has proposed a 34-story wood-framed apartment tower - which would be the world's tallest wood building if constructed.

July 1 - Dezeen

A common question raised by those working in the developing world is whether urban planning is useful in those environments. Since questions often focus on planning of a comprehensive type, they overlook planning's intrinsic value and flexibility.

July 1 - The World Bank Group

Unless an agreement between two BART unions and management can be reached, the Bay Area may experience traffic gridlock on Monday if the heavy rail network shuts down, leaving riders in S.F, the East Bay, and Peninsula with considerably fewer options

July 1 - San Francisco Chronicle

Come September, for tens of millions of dollars, you can be the owner of the latest in healthy living - a "WELL-certified condominium" - which promises to deliver improved air, water, light, sleep, energy and nutrition.

July 1 - The New York Times

Two very different grades are assigned, one from David Hawkins, Director of Climate Programs at NRDC; the other from a college senior working on a fossil fuel divestment campaign. Michael Brune of the Sierra Club differs with Hawkins on natural gas.

July 1 - Living on Earth

The results of a survey conducted last year of the forests of Cambodia, but just published this month, has found a complex landscape of "low-density urban sprawl" connected to Angkor Wat, upending our understanding of pre-industrial urbanism.

July 1 - The Guardian

Dr. Clement Lau, a Los Angeles County Planner, describes what the threatened USC Doctor of Policy, Planning, and Development (DPPD) program meant to him and why he thinks it's worth saving.

June 30 - UrbDeZine.com