The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

The city of Los Angeles is considering a plan to stop paying for repairs to broken sidewalks and driveways, shifting the economic burden to property owners.

May 9 - Los Angeles Times

The recent bomb scare in New York City's Times Square has brought increased attention to the city's system of security cameras.

May 9 - The New York Times

The Yalecrest neighborhood of Salt Lake City has been designated an historic district, and local property owners are up in arms over what they see as a taking of property rights.

May 9 - The Deseret News

A new study found that residents in areas with interconnected streets travel 26% fewer miles by automobile than those in areas with lots of cul-de-sacs.

May 9 - The Infrastructurist

New York's Broadway goes pedestrian, while Sacramento's K Street goes back to having car traffic. Are pedestrian plazas a relic of the past, or the wave of the future?

May 9 - Next American City

Japan is struggling to lure tourists, which is causing officials there to rethink how they market their cities and what sorts of attractions they should be offering.

May 8 - The New York Times

Police in Gainesville, Florida are trying to encourage drivers to be more cautious of pedestrians with a new sign and driver tracking program that tracks how many drivers are yielding to pedestrians.

May 8 - The Gainesville Sun

I.M. Pei's 1964 redesign of Oklahoma City involved the destruction of more than 500 buildings. It was abandoned in the 80s. A model now on display reveals the modernist ideal that Pei envisioned and eventually failed to inspire redevelopment.

May 8 - The Oklahoman

Edward L. Glaeser says that the government policy of encouraging homeownership through tax breaks subsidizes Americans to buy bigger homes which waste energy.

May 8 - The Boston Globe

Two major reports released in the last couple of weeks detail very different approaches to fixing the highway system in the U.S. At the National Journal, experts weigh in on who has the right approach.

May 8 - National Journal Online

Peter Harnik, director of the Center for City Park Excellence at the Trust for Public Land, believes that formulas for how much parkland cities and neighborhoods cause more harm than good.

May 7 - NRDC Blog

Marketplace reports on the parking market from NYC. Peak hour parking is being applied on Sixth Ave in Greenwich Village as a trial to increase parking availability and decrease congestion. Due to positive results, it's now being tried in Brooklyn.

May 7 - Marketplace (American Public Media - Radio)

Jeffrey Simpson argues that, in most policy areas that matter to Canadians, the federal government is doing almost nothing, while provinces and cities are moving ahead with innovation in energy, climate change and transportation.

May 7 - The Globe and Mail

Blair Kamin applauds a new plaza at the Trump International Hotel + Tower, and calls an aging public space nearby 'an eyesore.'

May 7 - The Chicago Tribune

Across the country, grey-to-green transformations are in the works, capping freeways to reconnect neighborhoods with urban parks.

May 7 - USA Today

Former Planetizen managing editor Christian Madera proposes that videoconferencing could revolutionize the public meeting because the entire proceedings could be "broken up and digitized."

May 7 - Next American City

"Participatory Chinatown" is a computer game designed to increase public participation in the planning process in Boston.

May 7 - The Boston Globe

Filmmaker Keiichi Matsuda imagines a future where augmented reality is everywhere, blanketing the built environment with advertising and interactive elements.

May 7 - Vimeo

The Deepwater Horizon disaster presents President Obama with an opportunity to "move boldly" on alternative energy, writes Bill McKibben.

May 7 - AlterNet

Patrik Schumacher of Zaha Hadid Architects argues that the unified style of architecture for the 21st century will be 'parametricism'.

May 7 - The Architect's Journal