The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

In case you need yet another reason to traverse the Atlantic Ocean, the Times has published several articles on the pleasures of walking through Europe.

April 24 - The New York Times

A speculative master plan for Chicago's West Loop would add a new layer to downtown's complex multi-level weaving of street strata and infrastructure with a highway cap park.

April 24 - The Architect's Newspaper

A session at the recent APA National Conference in Chicago gathered together the heads of the major built-environment professional organizations to discuss their unique and shared challenges. One subject was on each head's mind: Water.

April 24 - ASLA The Dirt

California's cap-and-trade program is barely five months old, and already it's expanding its horizons. Officials announced last week that the program is merging with one operated in the Canadian province of Quebec.

April 24 - The Los Angeles Times

According to Arianna McBride, the recipe for good community design must effectively balance community wisdom with expert knowledge. She shares three ways that planners can facilitate the type of participation that leads to great places.

April 24 - Citizens' Institute on Rural Design

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