The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

A new Senate bill aims to give drivers more control over the growing trove of data being collected by sensors and computers embedded in our cars. Most drivers are unaware of how much personal information is being recorded.

January 14 - The New York Times

Call it the Lac-Mégantic effect - the July 6 conflagration that leveled the downtown, killing 47 people, has implications for all jurisdictions where oil and freight trains run. Cities must recognize that rail insurance policies are woefully lacking.

January 14 - The Wall Street Journal

An inordinate amount of traffic fatalities occur in developing parts of the world. In some countries, road deaths have surpassed diseases like AIDS and Tuberculosis as a public health threat.

January 14 - The Washington Post

Construction and permitting for large solar facilities like those located in the desert at the border of California and Nevada is nearly non-existent. Uncertainty over expiring tax credits is only partly to blame.

January 13 - Los Angeles Times

As a leading cause of death in the U.S., car collisions are one of the country's foremost public health problems. But a review of the last century of medical literature reveals increasing reluctance by the profession to weigh in on the subject.

January 13 - DC.Streetsblog

In Valencia, workers will begin removing the sparkling mosaic facade that adorns the Queen Sofía Palace of the Arts today. The opera house's crumbling facade is the latest episode to tarnish architect Santiago Calatrava's professional reputation.

January 13 - The New York Times

Before San Diego can begin to fix its "busted sidewalks and busted sidewalk policies," the city is embarking on a high-tech $1 million effort to assess the quality of its pedestrian infrastructure.

January 13 - Voice of San Diego

In December, the Rockefeller Foundation chose the first 33 cities to receive funding and support through its 100 Resilient Cities Challenge. Here's what comes next.

January 13 - Future Cities

After unceremoniously dispatching the state’s redevelopment agencies amidst California’s recent fiscal crisis, Governor Jerry Brown has formulated a new scheme for cities to achieve their redevelopment goals, but there's a catch.

January 13 - California Planning & Development Report

A new study by the Community Service Society has found that New York City lost an astonishing percentage of apartments affordable to low-income residents over the past decade. The study supports Mayor de Blasio's "tale of two cities" narrative.

January 13 - The Wall Street Journal

BLOG POST

Preserving urban landscapes can be just as important as preserving historic buildings. However, saving our design heritage needs to be balanced with the imperative that places effectively meet the functional needs of contemporary cities.

January 13 - Mark Hough

With women accounting for only 20% of registered architects in Britain and 8% of professional engineers, the incoming president of the Royal Academy of Engineering has a compelling idea to encourage more women to enter the fields: give girls legos.

January 13 - The Guardian

A complete streets program once thought to be on the fast track to approval has provoked strong opposition and is likely headed back to the drawing board in the Gateway City.

January 13 - St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Three hundred thousand residents in nine counties in W.Va, including the state capital have gone without tap water since Thursday due to a massive chemical spill into the Elk River. All uses except flushing are off-limits. How much longer is unknown.

January 13 - The New York Times

The city of Miami is constructing its first tunnel, which will ease traffic congestion in the area, at a price of $1 billion.

January 12 - The 305

In the wake of Toronto’s unprecedented ice storm - which saw 300,000 residents loose power for as long as 12 days - Christopher Hume argues that cost-cutting contributed to the extent of havoc wreaked by the city’s under-maintained tree canopy.

January 12 - The Toronto Star

Improvements in governance and quality of life in Lagos stand in sharp contrast to the political squabbling and mismanagement that plague the rest of Nigeria. Seth D. Kaplan argues that Lagos can provide a model for other fragile states.

January 12 - The New York Times

The murder rate in Ciudad Juárez is in sharp decline: from 3,075 in 2010 to 487 in 2013. Juárez officials are launching initiatives to revitalize the city and attract visitors from across the border in Texas and New Mexico.

January 12 - WFAA Channel 8 Dallas/Ft. Worth

A new documentary from Streetfilms explores how open streets events–which repurpose public spaces for people, rather than vehicles–have grown over the past several decades throughout South and North America.

January 12 - Streetfilms

Housing construction hasn't kept up with Britain's robust population growth. The Economist floats several ideas for spurring development: relax permissions for developing greenfields, incentivize building on brownfields, and tax the value of land.

January 11 - The Economist