The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

A joint project by technology company Esri and the city of San Francisco shows the promising confluence of open data and innovative visualization techniques.

October 16 - Fast Company Co.Exist

Is Clay Chapman the Joel Salatin of homebuilding? At $80/SF for a custom, multi-century, structural masonry and timber frame home, he just might be. Scott Doyon enumerates the similarities, and challenges others to get involved.

October 16 - PlaceShakers

It wasn't Angelenos' supposed love of the artificial and exaggerated that brought crowds of people to the city's streets to see Endeavour's slow crawl across town, but an appreciation for authentic spectacle and the pleasures of public space.

October 16 - Los Angeles Times

A local marina owner's plan to build a floating marsh in Baltimore's Inner Harbor to help clean up the city's main tourist attraction is being viewed skeptically by officials, who have raised a number of questions and concerns.

October 16 - The Baltimore Sun

Richard Florida discusses why "quality of place", rather than job opportunity, is the determining factor in where creative-minded people choose to live.

October 16 - Urban Land Magazine

A New York state law on the books since the 1980s undervalues property tax rates on multimillion dollar residential buildings, providing astonishing discounts to New York City’s wealthiest homeowners.

October 16 - The New York Times

The release of the sketchy first plans by designers SOM, Morphosis, and James Corner Field Operations for Cornell's new tech campus on New York's Roosevelt Island kick off the project's public review process.

October 15 - The New York Observer

A year after the historic Walter Reed Army Medical Center closed its doors, a mix of uses - from embassies to schools to a town center - are being envisioned for the 110-acre campus.

October 15 - The Washington Post

If you were confused by recent census data that named four California metros, including Delano (pop 53,819), as the most dense in America, a new report that looks at "population-weighted density" may deliver more satisfying results.

October 15 - The Atlantic Cities

Along a nondescript street in Chicago's gritty West Side, a 1.5-mile stretch of a "historic, industrial artery" has been given a futuristic makeover as the greenest street in the country, and perhaps the world, reports Lori Rotenberk.

October 15 - Grist

In this month's edition of its Planning Advisory Service (PAS) spotlight, the APA looks at the ways in which different communities are addressing homelessness in their comprehensive plans, and through other types of documents.

October 15 - APA

Despite recent controversy that claimed the BeltLine Inc’s president, when the 2.25-mile Eastside Trail opens this week, Atlanta's long-awaited Beltline will take its “most significant step forward yet,” reports Bill Torpy.

October 15 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> Years ago, when I was researching my thesis concerning city planning thought in the 1940s and 50s, I came across an article from an American planning journal, which stated that &quot;everyone is in favor of fast and efficient freeways&quot; – the epitome of prevailing orthodoxy in an era of Interstate Highway construction. Now, when I share this quote with students, it only elicits derisive laughter.

October 15 - Michael Dudley

Norway takes this responsibility seriously. Not only will it double its carbon tax, in existence since 1991, but it will use revenues to invest in renewable energy and food security in the developing world while expanding its own oil exploration.

October 15 - Guardian - U.K.

With the convention industry still hobbled by the effects of the recession, and a glut of convention space across America hungering for events, cities are going to extreme lengths to attract the expected injections to their local economies.

October 15 - The Wall Street Journal

The SF Municipal Transportation Agency's Central Subway project, opposed by transit advocacy group SaveMuni, received a Full Funding Grant Agreement from FTA that dedicates $942.2 million to the Caltrain to Chinatown extension of the 'T' LRT line.

October 15 - RT&S (Railway Track & Structures)

SPUR, the San Francisco-based planing think tank, looks at the potential benefits to the public sector of using dynamic, demand-based pricing to manage limited public resources - from parking to electricity.

October 15 - SPUR

California has relied more on federal subsidies to develop its growing alternative energy industry than any other state in the country. With Mitt Romney seeking to trim such aid, the upcoming election will determine the fate of state energy policy.

October 14 - Los Angeles Times

It's hard to believe that in the decades since the impact of greenhouse gas emissions were first recognized, no standard for measuring and calculating emissions has been developed. The introduction of the Community Protocol intends to change that.

October 14 - Next American City

Joe Edmiston, Executive Director of the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, embraces the suburban, private yard-quality to Los Angeles living in an interview with The Planning Report, emphasizing the need to balance densification with open space.

October 14 - The Planning Report