The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

While Mike Madden finds President Obama's approach to America's cities is a vast improvement over that of the Bush administration, he wonders why it has yet to deliver on its promise.

May 28 - Salon.com

A proposal authored by Stanford students for a class to create a pedestrian-only zone near campus has gotten the attention of business owners and the community.

May 28 - Streetsblog

Time Magazine looks at the problem of 'food deserts' in America- usually low-income communities that groceries have spurned, leaving only fast food and bodegas to fill the bill.

May 28 - Time

...now that the self-balancing unicycle is here, courtesy of Vancouver inventor Daniel Wood.

May 28 - Oregon Live

California's proposed high-speed rail line is to be funded by a patchwork of federal, state, and local funding mechanisms. Reporter Dierdre Newman sorts through the morass.

May 28 - spot.us

The San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association (SPUR) has opened new offices with the goal of interacting more with the public and creating an 'urban center'.

May 28 - The Architect's Newspaper

<em>Building Happiness,</em> a new collection of writings on architecture, concludes that the connect between beauty and happiness is unfounded.

May 28 - Metropolis Magazine

Empty swimming pools and deserted roadside motels feature prominently in <em>No Lifeguard on Duty,</em> a new book of photographs.

May 28 - GOOD Magazine

Herve Kemp believes that the future of employment in Europe will include a million "family farmer jobs."

May 28 - Truthout

New maps created by the Center for Neighborhood Technology show that while emissions are greater per acre in cities, they are greater per household in suburbs.

May 27 - NRDC Blog

Only 17% of shoppers in downtown San Francisco drove to get there, according to a new survey conducted by The San Francisco County Transportation Authority.

May 27 - Streetsblog SF

BLOG POST

<p> <br /> I had the opportuntity, at the 2009 national <a href="http://www.planning.org/nationalconference/">planning conference</a> in Minneapolis, to present (together with my colleague <a href="/blog/11">Christian Peralta Madera</a>) ten free web applications that can be used to support planning. <br /> <br /> Approximately 350 participants attended the session. Since the presentation, I&#39;ve received over 100 emails congratulating us on the practical nature of the presentation, and requesting links to the websites we presented. Since our presentation was a hands-on demonstration, this blog entry outlines the ten technologies, and provides links to examples of the technology in practice and resources so you can experiment with the technologies. <br />

May 27 - Chris Steins

Last week in Seoul, Bill Clinton announced a new collaboration between the Clinton Climate Initiative and the U.S. Green Building Council to go beyond the single LEED building and create new green development models for whole communities.

May 27 - The New York Times

Shelby County and Memphis are on the verge of adopting a new smart growth zoning code to slow urban sprawl and breathe reinvigorate urban centers. The county's Main Street Mall will remain car-free. "Pedestrian-friendly" is the new planning theme.

May 27 - The Commercial Appeal (Memphis

BLOG POST

<p> A friend introduced me yesterday to rambunctious bicycling advocate Fred Oswald via a <a href="http://blog.cleveland.com/metro/2009/05/_scott_shaw_the_plain.html">recent article</a> out of Cleveland’s press. Much debate swirls around his not-so-uncommon opinions. Mr. Oswald’s argument can be boiled down to two points: supporting a critical need for much more bicycling education on sharing public roadways with other vehicles, and fighting an industry-borne fallacy that breaking up streets with allocated spaces, such as bike lanes, is good for the biking community. The former is, of course, not contestable. We all agree that safety and training are absolutely critical to developing a strong and healthy bicycling community.

May 27 - Ian Sacs

With communities balking at the purported ugliness of windtowers and solar panels, a Dutch company proposes using nature's own designs.

May 27 - Fast Company

The new documentary <em>The Greening of Southie</em> follows construction workers in Boston as they adapt to the new rules and regulations of green development (sometimes unwittingly).

May 27 - GOOD Magazine

Construction begins on Aerotropolis Atlanta, an unusual "live-work-play mini-city" development going up close to Atlanta's Hartsfield Airport- so close, in fact, that there will be a connecting walkway directly to the new international terminal.

May 27 - Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Peter Calthorpe is in Markham, Ontario working on, in his words, 'the highest manifestation of transit-oriented development I have been involved in.'

May 27 - The Toronto Star

A battle over the height of a proposed skyscraper in San Francisco emphasizes the need for an update to the city's 25-yr old plan, says critic John King.

May 27 - San Francisco Chronicle