The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Buffalo to Implement Citywide Green Code

Mayor Byron Brown announced that the city's new code will be the "Buffalo Green Code," supporting walkable, sustainable neighborhoods.

April 24 - Buffalo Rising

Stats Systems to See Upgrade in Federal Budget

This post from <em>The New Republic</em> explains how the federal budget includes plans to upgrade some of the varied parts that track statistics in the country.

April 24 - The New Republic

Consolidating Stops to Make Buses Run Faster

Riders of San Francisco's Muni bus system often complain that the buses stop too much. Now, evidence is building that simply consolidating bus stops will help to make the buses run faster and more reliably.

April 24 - Streetfilms

BLOG POST

The Reinvented City

<p> I&#39;m writing from Cambridge, where the Lincoln Institute of Land Policy and the Harvard Graduate School of Design are hosting their annual shindig for a small crew of journalists crazy enough to have urban issues as their beat. </p>

April 23 - Tim Halbur

Brasilia, 50 Years Later

Christopher Hawthorne remarks that Brasilia had an optimism that is remarkably different from today's new cities that are striving towards sustainability and preparing for eco-disasters.

April 23 - The Los Angeles Times


Studying Light Rail to Death?

Winnipeg has been debating -- and studying-- rapid transit for decades. With the first leg of a BRT system finally under construction, critics are questioning the mayor's decision to fund yet another study on LRT.

April 23 - The Winnipeg Free Press

Spinning for Dinner

A hotel in Copenhagen offers $40 meal vouchers for anyone who produces 10 watt hours of electricity using their wired-up stationery bicycles.

April 23 - Next100 (PG&E blog)


Vintners in the City

The Wall St. Journal reports on a growing trend for wineries to set up show in cities, trucking their grapes to warehouse "cellars" to be closer to the people.

April 23 - The Wall St. Journal

TOD Diluted

Brian Paul argues that developers have jumped on the transit-oriented development bandwagon without actually delivering true TOD.

April 23 - Gotham Gazette

The Magic of a Passageway

A humble passageway through a building to a parking lot became a favorite public space with just a deli, a Starbucks, and some patio tables.

April 23 - The Cleveland Plain Dealer

Chicago, Capital of Green Roofs?

Chicago City Hall boasts one of the world's most famous green roofs. As a result, the city has a reputation for being the capital of green roofs. But as architecture critic Blair Kamin notes from a bird's eye view, that's not exactly the case.

April 23 - Chicago Tribune

Comparing San Francisco's Tenderloin and L.A.'s Skid Row

This blog post from <em>Governing</em> explores the similarities between San Francisco's troubled Tenderloin district and Los Angeles' Skid Row-adjacent Spring Street corridor, and why one struggles and the other has found some developmental success.

April 23 - Governing

BRT Blossoms in India

This piece from <em>Places</em> takes a look at a new bus rapid transit system that is growing in the Indian city of Ahmedabad.

April 23 - Places

Community Design for Public Health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are getting in the urban design racket with a new guide to community design that focuses on how urban form can affect public health.

April 23 - LAND

Kotkin Ranks Best Cities for New Jobs

In a survey developed by Pepperdine's School of Public Policy for New Geography, Joel Kotkin says the results are depressing. Only 13 metro areas saw any job growth in the last year.

April 22 - New Geography

3 Reasons New Yorkers Ignore the Census

Many New Yorkers who haven't returned their census forms fear that doing so could cost them their apartments.

April 22 - City Limits

Sustainable Transport Saves New Yorkers $19 Billion Per Year

A new report from CEOs for Cities shows that New Yorkers save a lot of moola on their transportation costs because of their city's walkability and transit options.

April 22 - Streetsblog

This Earth Day, Make the Connection With Land Use

Patrick L. Phillips, CEO of the Urban Land Institute, uses the occasion of Earth Day to say yes, "how we use land matters."

April 22 - ULI

Forbes Ranking Finds Cities in "Free Fall"

Forbes Magazine analyzed major economic indicators for the country's 40 largest Metropolitan Statistical Areas (MSA) and discovered that 10 cities are facing worsening economic conditions.

April 22 - Forbes

The Orthodoxy of Urbanism

Planners take a prescriptive approach to urbanism, while people have their own ideas about what makes good places that don't fit the standard orthodoxy. Drew Austin says both extremes need attention, and synthesis.

April 22 - The Urbanophile

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