The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Rachel L. Swarns traces D.C.'s transformation into a younger and livelier city to when a former senator from Illinois moved into a stately mansion on Pennsylvania Avenue, and brought with him urbane tastes and an iPod filled with Nicki Minaj.

January 21 - The New York Times

What is the future of the "deeply flawed" state gas tax? Lemov Penelope compares the approaches taken by VA and OR - both plan to eliminate it and replace it with alternatives - a state sales tax and a vehicle-miles-traveled (VMT) fee, respectively.

January 21 - Governing Magazine

Paris, Barcelona, New York City...Cleveland? Like the oft-hidden urban oasis that are the subject of this article, you may come across some surprises in Crai S. Bower's list of the best cities for pocket parks.

January 21 - MSN

The Rockefeller Foundation unveils its innovative plan to incentivize private investors to provide the infrastructure solutions for eight U.S. cities most vulnerable to extreme storms and rising seas.

January 21 - The Washington Post

The homes designed by architect John Lautner have appeared often in films, many times as characters themselves and many times associated with villains. Adam Baer examines what it is about Lautner's designs that inspire associations with evil.

January 21 - The Virginia Quarterly Review

Now that we know the two teams who will duke it out on Feb 3rd, fans and advertisers can turn their attention to the year's biggest sporting event. But the Super Bowl is more than just a football game, it's also a transportation-planning challenge.

January 21 - Transportation Radio

As the 100th anniversary of its opening approaches, The New York Times recounts the birth of one of the finest railway stations in the world - Grand Central Terminal.

January 21 - The New York Times

For those that've wondered about the fate of New York's "occasionally controversial" Plaza Program projects after the administration that's championed them leaves office: Have no fear, says Janette Sadik-Khan, "This is set in stone."

January 20 - The New York Observer

"America is renewing itself from the bottom up." That is the premise underlying the second annual “Innovations to Watch” list just released by The Brookings Metropolitan Policy Program and The Rockefeller Foundation.

January 20 - Brookings

So said Thomas Donohue, CEO of the world's largest business organization, in calling for raising the gas tax at a press conference following the annual State of American Business address to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

January 20 - Governing

In this compelling essay, authors Matias Echanove and Rahul Srivastava take a look at Tokyo's post-war development and explore how lessons learned from its unplanned growth may be useful for other rapidly urbanizing Asian cities today.

January 20 - Next City

Residents of a neighborhood filled with historic Shanghai architectural style buildings, shikumen, found themselves removed by their government in favor of new, modern luxury condos, hotels, up-scale retail stores, and trendy cafes.

January 20 - Global Site Plans

In Sydney, "the most unaffordable housing market in the English- speaking world", sky-high housing prices are driving residents priced out of the suburbs into apartments downtown, reports Nichola Saminather.

January 19 - Bloomberg

Renting out luxury homes has become an attractive choice in today's housing market. High-end renters get many of the benefits of owning a home, with greater built-in flexibility, and without the financial risk.

January 19 - The Wall Street Journal

Susan Elkin points to alarmingly low statistics on the number of children who walk to school, especially when compared with historic rates. She lays out some “blindingly obvious” and “child-centered” reasons why this trend needs to be reversed.

January 19 - The Independent

Transit schedules, especially for buses, are notoriously inaccurate. A new app seeks to give a better picture of the status of the bus or train you keep trying to spot in the distance.

January 19 - Fast Company Co.Exist

India’s foremost environmental think tank is touting a recently developed sustainable building certification program "Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment" (GRIHA) as more holistic than LEED. Could it also help enforce labor laws?

January 19 - Green Futures Magazine

Interactive before and after images taken nearly six decades apart show L.A.'s changing urban landscape.

January 18 - Los Angeles Times

In a short film for The New York Times, Jason DaSilva documents how New York's famed public transit system, which serves millions of riders every day, fails the city's disabled residents.

January 18 - The New York Times

The decade-long transformation of Toronto's historic Maple Leaf Gardens into a new centerpiece for its neighborhood may serve as a model for one of the trickiest types of adaptive reuse, reports Mark Byrnes.

January 18 - The Atlantic Cities