The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Recognizing that the overdue transportation reauthorization bill would not pass Congress by Sept. 30, resulting in the expiration of the 18.4 cent gas tax, President Obama called upon Congress to pass a 'clean', extension of undetermined length.

September 1 - D.C. Streetsblog

The "Borscht Belt", a once-thriving vacation getaway in upstate New York, has entered a serious decline. Legalizing gambling in the region is being discussed as a cure-all to revitalize the Catskills, but Citiography thinks its too late.

September 1 - Citiography

Changes to the planning system in England have locals and environmental groups up in arms.

September 1 - Guardian

FEATURE

Are skyscrapers the way to achieve great density, or a form of retro-urbanism that should be retired? With a debate simmering in the planning world over the energy efficiency and urban necessity of tall towers, Planetizen's staff decided to determine the answer once and for all.

September 1 - Tim Halbur

Deadly algae and invasive species are choking the life out of Lake Erie. It recovered from near-death 40 years ago, but the regulations that helped save it last time are under increasing attack.

September 1 - OnEarth

As the city of Los Angeles considers a plan to allow construction of a football stadium downtown, some have called into question the economic projections of developers.

September 1 - Los Angeles Times

Shoup might love it or hate it. Rather than allowing the city, neighborhood, or homeowner to profit from unpriced curb parking by establishing a “parking benefit district”, the transient motorist auctions the spot upon departure...on an iPhone!

September 1 - DNAinfo.com

Libertarians opposition toward government backed light-rail ignores the longer history of government's pro-car policies, says Timothy B. Lee, contributor for Forbes.

September 1 - Forbes

BLOG POST

<p> Historically, data sources for urban planning have remained relatively stable. Planners relied on a collection of well-known government-produced datasets to do their work, including statistics and geographic layers from federal, state and local sources. Produced by regulatory processes or occasional surveys, the strengths and limitations of these sources are well known to planners and many citizens. However all this is beginning to change. Not only has the U.S. Census Bureau&#39;s American Community Survey introduced a bewildering variety of data products, all with margins of error, three interrelated categories of new data are growing rapidly: crowdsourced, private, and &quot;big&quot; data. </p>

September 1 - Robert Goodspeed

Pollution is threatening the structural integrity of the Taj Mahal, prompting local officials to scramble for ways to preserve the historic site.

September 1 - Smithsonian

Transit officials in San Francisco are considering a plan to allow transit riders to board through all doors of buses in an attempt to cut delays.

September 1 - San Francisco Chronicle

The amount of urban background noise is affecting the songs that birds sing to attract mates.

September 1 - Discovery

Minorities comprise in 2010 more than half the population in 22 of the largest metro areas in and 98 percent population growth in large metro areas from 2000 to 2010, a recent report by The Brookings Institute shows.

August 31 - The Brookings Institution

Author William Gibson talks to Scientific American about how "the future's arrived," and the many ways you can see the future around you.

August 31 - Scientific American

Urban infill housing is becoming a major part of business for large homebuilders, even those building modular homes.

August 31 - Builder

A bill to forcibly disband the tiny city of Vernon, California and incorporate it into Los Angeles County failed to pass earlier this week on concerns that it would economically weaken the county.

August 31 - The Los Angeles Times

Local Tea Party activists gather 10,000 signatures to place an initiative on the ballot to remove Ventura's new parking meters, only to discover that they're pre-empted by the California Vehicle Code.

August 31 - Mayor Bill Fulton's blog

Nina Rappaport of UrbanOmnibus explores the history of the urban factory, examining the social, economic, and environmental benefits of the modern vertical factory industry.

August 31 - UrbanOmnibus

As millions of rural poor move into Chinese cities, the country's legal residency system is making life difficult for the illegal rural migrants.

August 31 - The New York Times

This infographic explains the new green techniques that will revise the way Philadelphia catches and processes stormwater.

August 31 - OnEarth Magazine