The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<em>The Atlantic</em> talks with architect and planner Andres Duany about 30 years of the New Urbanism, and how the urban landscape of America has changed over that time.

May 20 - The Atlantic

Washington D.C.'s planned 37-mile streetcar system will be a boon to nearby businesses, according to a recent report. As a result, the mayor is pushing a plan that would ask commercial property owners to help fund the system.

May 20 - The Washington Post

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: small">There are various ways to define building sustainability. A narrow perspective assumes that <em>sustainable development</em> simply means that buildings minimize energy consumption and climate change emissions, but a broader perspective recognizes that sustainability requires consideration of additional economic, social and other environmental impacts, such as lifecycle affordability, social equity, community integration, public health and safety, and land use impacts.

May 20 - Todd Litman

Baltimore's Middle Branch waterfront has sat unused for years, since its recent decline as an industrial hub. But a developer has a new plan to drastically remake the 52-acre shoreline.

May 20 - The Architect's Newspaper

Despite uncertainties about funding and objections from the city's mayor, Toronto's light rail plans are moving ahead, according to transit officials.

May 20 - Global Toronto

To survive, neighborhoods need to be commercially viable. A group called the Food Trust believes grocery stores are a good starting point for creating that economic climate.

May 20 - The Atlantic

This report from <em>The Globe and Mail</em> looks at a recent study of three of Canada's big cities -- Vancouver, Calgary and Toronto -- and compares their densities and development patterns.

May 20 - The Globe and Mail

FEATURE

People need to stop thinking about cities as bundles of technical problems that the planners must solve for them and to start thinking about the different ways that they would live in different types of cities, says Charles Siegel.

May 20 - Charles Siegel

Gary Toth and Hannah Twaddell untangle the complexity of planning for rural communities.

May 19 - Blueprint America

Brad Templeton dreams about a world of mini robot cars and the infrastructure savings that would result.

May 19 - Brad Ideas

China has plans not only to expand its own network of high speed trains, but to build the trains for the rest of the world. They are already giving Japan and Europe a run for their money. Not bad considering their first HSR line opened in 2008.

May 19 - The Washington Post

Nearly five years and $200 million in, contruction has barely begun on the Great Park of Orange County, planned to be as ambitious as New York's Central Park.

May 19 - The Orange County Register

For decades, Indian political leaders turned their attention towards the rural population. Today, a new focus on urbanization is attracting Japanese partners to develop "eco-towns" along a rail line.

May 19 - Forbes.com

Blair Kamin, architecture critic for the Chicago Tribune, says that historic preservationists need to rethink their "preservation at all costs" strategies in light of global warming.

May 19 - Preservation Magazine

Deputy Mayor Naomi Tsur of Jerusalem is proposing that the city must 'emerge from its [many] walls', and connect and enhance its vibrant public spaces.

May 19 - myurbanist

Howard Ahmanson poses the idea that Los Angeles might be the least gentrified city in the U.S., with a history of white flight south and immigrants improving their own neighborhoods and holding on to them.

May 19 - New Geography

A Fresno, CA architect has designed and built a number of tiny buildings made out of recycled materials as homes for the homeless, but has yet to find a site that will take them.

May 19 - The Fresno Bee

A recent proposal by Britain's Conservative Party to create a system of conservation credits to protect biodiversity should be expanded to a global scale, according to this piece from <em>The Guardian</em>.

May 19 - The Guardian

A gubernatorial candidate in California wants to take one of the Channel Islands (a national park) and make it a place to dump pedophiles, with their own separate society.

May 18 - Curbed

Kenneth Small of UC Irvine shows that higher prices do reduce driving, as do recessions when workers lose their jobs, which is one of the main factors in the recent drop in VMT.

May 18 - The New York Times - Business Day