The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

While the news has been full of warnings about the rapidly deteriorating air quality of cities in the developing world, David Agren examines how one megacity has managed to drastically clean its polluted air over the past twenty years.

April 24 - The Christian Science Monitor

The General Services Administration, which is looking for ways to fund a new FBI campus, has more ideas at its fingertips with three tantalizing proposals for redeveloping the Hoover Building in downtown Washington, D.C., writes Jonathan O'Connell.

April 24 - The Washington Post

For professional-class workers with annual household incomes in the top income quintile, New York is a comparatively affordable place. A recent study attributes lower costs to competition between businesses that cater to upper-income people.

April 24 - The New York Times

Sunday saw the sixth incarnation of L.A.'s popular CicLAvia event, which closes long stretches of city streets to automobile traffic, and opens them to bikes and pedestrians. The latest route, from downtown to the sea, attracted 150,000 people.

April 23 - The Los Angeles Times

Doug Henwood explains how "elite bodies", rather than pure "market forces", guide the growth of New York City. He begins his story with the Regional Plan Association's influential 1929 plan and focuses on the transformation of Downtown Brooklyn.

April 23 - The Nation

When the Localism Act was adopted in 2011, local communities gained broad new planning powers across the UK. But as recent events in one London suburb demonstrate, politics and ideological conflict have found a home in the participatory process.

April 23 - The Global Urbanist

No less than eighteen U.S. cities are expected to launch bike-share systems this year, a fifty percent increase over the number currently in operation. An infographic from bike sharing consultancy BikeShare.com details the new programs.

April 23 - BikeShare.com

World Bank President Jim Yong Kim explains why climate change is a poverty issue - and why we must tackle it today to ensure that carbon emissions do not continue rising after 2016. Establishing a world price on carbon will be difficult to achieve.

April 23 - PBS NewsHour - The Rundown

Chronic coughs, stuffy noses, and face masks whenever you venture outside. Edward Wong looks at the "hell" that is childhood in China's polluted cities, which is forcing some affluent families to leave, and giving foreigners pause before entering.

April 23 - The New York Times

Ambition is good, but don't bite off more than you can chew. Hazel Borys applies this valuable lesson to form-based codes.

April 23 - PlaceShakers

When the West Fertilizer Co plant exploded last week in Texas, it severely damaged homes and schools located in close proximity to the property, and killed dozens of people. Markos Moulitsas blames lax zoning standards for putting lives at risk.

April 23 - Daily Kos

In a quest to develop a plan to house the additional 1 million people expected to grow New Zealand's largest city in the next 30 years, Auckland is asking residents to submit ideas by using a "housing simulator" game.

April 23 - Fast Company Co.Exist

In a scathing op-ed for The New York Times, architect Robert Stern challenges the city's drive to densify East Midtown without paying the requisite attention to preservation, infrastructure, and the elements that give vitality to great cities.

April 23 - The New York Times

The environmental awakening of the 1970s led to landmark federal laws that have helped heal our natural systems. The growing “Rights of Nature” movement seeks to create new protections to respond to emerging ecological threats.

April 22 - Fast Company Co.Exist

Brad Plumer looks at the latest data on Americans' driving habits, which shows that vehicle miles driven have fallen an astonishing 8.75 percent since June 2005. Despite the end of the recession, driving rates continue their downward trend. But why?

April 22 - The Washington Post

Although its inward-facing corporate design may be loathed by architects and planners, L.A. Live's success in helping to draw redevelopment and activity to South Park is indisputable. Can its successes be replicated in Seattle?

April 22 - The Seattle Times

In time for Earth Day, American Rivers has released its annual list of the country's most threatened rivers. Topping this year's list is the Colorado River, a waterway so dammed, diverted and over-tapped that it ultimately "dries to a trickle."

April 22 - Take Part

A major environmental lawsuit against the High Speed Rail Authority brought by Central Valley farmers and other parties was settled on April 18, clearing the way for initial construction to begin on the 30 mile corridor between Madera and Fresno.

April 22 - KQED

Despite the end of the recession, the number of New Yorkers in, or near, poverty continues to creep up, with 46 percent of the city's residents making less than 150 percent of the poverty threshold, reports Sam Roberts.

April 22 - The New York Times

From traditional stormwater management to storm surge abatement and conserving drinking water and watersheds, green infrastructure improves our cities, explains Adrian Benepe of the Trust for Public Land.

April 22 - Sustainable Cities Collective