The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Amsterdam has a serious parking problem, but it's not what you might think. In this bike friendly city, their problem is of the two- rather than four-wheeled kind. Duncan Geere looks at a potential solution.

June 8 - Wired

Sarah Kathleen Peck speaks with Amanda Walter and Holly Berkley about their new book, "Social Media in Action," the challenges different design professions have in communicating their work, and the ways in which new technologies are making it easier.

June 8 - Metropolis POV Blog

Rather than turn its back of the remnants of the industry that made and unmade this quintessential steel town, Bethlehem is rethinking its identity with the abandoned steel plant turned cultural magnet as its centerpiece, writes Tom Stoelker.

June 8 - The Architect's Newspaper

Curious about a legislator's offhand remark that light rail is "a total waste of money," Marlys Harris investigates the extent to which motorized transportation modes in the Twin Cities are subsidized. It turns out light rail is a heavy bargain.

June 8 - MinnPost

<em>The Dirt</em> reports on findings disclosed by this year's iteration of the Yale and Columbia University produced Environmental Performance Index (EPI). A new metric unveiled this year tracks the trend in each country's environmental performance.

June 8 - THE DIRT

With "guys in suits" having replaced the "artists, weirdos and blue-collar families" that surrounded Adam Davidson while growing up in the Village in the 1970s, he wonders if mom-and-pop shops can survive the neighborhood's extreme gentrification.

June 8 - The New York Times

The high cost of driving in Los Angeles has led some residents to swap their cars for bikes, buses, and the subway. This change has inadvertently allowed them to find freedom in their lives and a better connection with the City of Angels.

June 8 - Good Cities

Geoff Dyer points out why the difference between the typical strip mall and the multi-way boulevard may be more subtle than you think.

June 8 - PlaceShakers

Imagine converting a downtown street into a bicycle, people, and eco-friendly one - for just one week, by a crack team of urban design graduate students. Such an undertaking was done by Kent State U.'s urban design collaborative. Watch and learn!

June 8 - Streetsblog Network

BLOG POST

<p> <em>Editor&#39;s Note: A <a href="/node/56493" target="_blank">recent Planetizen blog post</a> by the University of South Florida’s Steven Polzin voiced several criticisms about the Housing + Transportation (H+T®) Affordability Index, created by the Chicago-based Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT). We have provided a venue for Scott Bernstein, founder and president of CNT, to respond below.</em> </p> <p align="center"> <u>CNT’s H+T Index Fills Gaps in Data that Others Don’t Provide</u> </p>

June 7 - Jonathan Nettler

Phyllis Lambert and Dinu Bumbaru author an opinion piece for the <em>Montreal Gazette</em> decrying plans to demolish a block of historic buildings on St. Laurent Blvd that reflect a key moment in the development of the city.

June 7 - Montreal Gazette

Say what you will about the gentrification of Brownstone Brooklyn, but there's no question that Everett and Evelyn Ortner's regard for the neighborhood's historical treasures had a significant influence on its evolution over the past 50 years.

June 7 - The New York Times

Yesterday, New York City's Planning Commission voted nearly unanimously to support a slightly reduced version of New York University's controversial expansion plans for two superblocks in Greenwich Village, reports Tom Stoelker.

June 7 - The Architect's Newspaper Blog

In light of dismal jobs reports and a lending environment in which the U.S. is "paying better rates than when George Washington was running unopposed for the presidency," Jordan Weissmann rants about the country's lack of infrastructure spending.

June 7 - The Atlantic

Lucrative for homeowners and industrial customers who can afford them, solar panels are not without their own issues. The equity issue - whereby the claim is made that poorer customers subsidize the utility costs of wealthier ones, is investigated.

June 7 - The New York Times - Business Day

On Wednesday, Mayor Rahm Emanuel kicked-off Chicago's “Make Way for People” program, an effort to "promote economic development and make Chicago streets safer for pedestrians," by transforming the city's paved surfaces into people places.

June 7 - Chicago Sun-Times

Who says playing games can’t make you smart? A recent study by Lumos Labs evaluated users’ game scores across the country to determine which metropolitan areas in the U.S. are the smartest.

June 7 - The Atlantic Cities

Chinese developers recently completed their controversial replication of the Austrian village of Hallstatt, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, reports Molly Oswaks.

June 7 - Gizmodo

Twitter’s move into San Francisco this month is part of a new trend of tech companies setting up in the city, causing rents to skyrocket, and forcing lower-income residents out.

June 7 - The New York Times

After being rocked by a scandal over extravagant spending, Tom Stoelker wonders whether the General Services Administration (GSA) and their hallmark initiatives, such as the Design Excellence Program, will suffer in the political fallout.

June 7 - The Architect's Newspaper