The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

BLOG POST

<p> As you may have heard in yesterday&#39;s <a href="/podcast">Planetizen Podcast</a>, Virginia Governor Tim Kaine <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/21/AR2009032102248.html">doesn&#39;t like cul-de-sacs</a>. </p> <p> Most news reports on the story have claimed that the state is &quot;forbidding,&quot; &quot;banning,&quot; or even &quot;outlawing&quot; the cul-de-sac. In fact, Virginia municipalities can still design, build, and approve any road patterns they wish, but the State will no longer agree to foot the bill for the ongoing maintenance of cul-de-sacs. The news item came up in a staff meeting yesterday and one colleague told us that a friend he was having dinner with declared the move &quot;Un-American!&quot; </p>

March 31 - Jess Zimbabwe

Despite some states using stimulus money to fund sprawl-inducing projects, Colorado seems to be avoiding projects that encourage exurban growth, according to this review.

March 31 - The Colorado Independent

Despite advocating for an end to ground-floor garages, a neighborhood group in Philadelphia is now asking for an exemption to the rule it wrote against them.

March 31 - The Philadelphia Inquirer

As theorists predict we are entering the age of the city, <em>Boston Globe</em> architecture critic Robert Campbell reflects on what this shift will mean and how Boston's landscape will change as a result.

March 31 - The Boston Globe

Amid the recession, industrial towns in the Rust Belt have been forced to evolve as jobs dry up. But this is nothing new for the region, where towns have been re-imagining their economies for decades. <em>NPR</em> reports.

March 31 - NPR

BLOG POST

<span style="font-size: small"> <p> In a past post, I wrote on the plan to urbanize Vancouver&#39;s Oakridge Centre, our first car-oriented &quot;suburban&quot; shopping centre <a href="/node/35542" target="_blank">(see past post here for information, report-links and images)</a>. Some have asked how the downturn has affected the plans to proceed - as we were only anticipating going through the next steps of planning and design (rezoning) in the next year or so, with some time before the owners were planning on initiating the physical transformation of the mall, I believe they remain in &quot;wait-and-see&quot; mode regarding possible timing of first phases, relative to the market.

March 30 - Brent Toderian

BLOG POST

Since the passage of <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/telecom.html">The Telecommunications Act of 1996</a>, media activists have been warning that a combination of consolidated corporate ownership of media outlets and a correspondingly intense profit orientation is resulting in diminished diversity of opinion, an avoidance of controversies and loss of choice for media consumers. In particular, they are concerned that remotely-owned newspapers, television and radio stations are incapable of adequately meeting local information needs, reporting on local issues and expressing local concerns.<br />

March 30 - Michael Dudley

As business slows down, road construction contractors are slashing their prices. They're offering lower bids to states across the country for road work, leading many transportation officials to foresee more work able to be funded by the stimulus.

March 30 - The New York Times

Population estimates mean that the Portland region will need about 300,000 additional homes by 2030. Where they should all go is up for debate.

March 30 - The Oregonian

This report from <em>KQED</em> radio looks at efforts to craft a replacement for the Kyoto Protocols.

March 30 - KQED

The stimulus plan includes $8 billion for investments in high-speed rail, but some critics point out that this isn't nearly enough to bring these plans to fruition.

March 30 - MSNBC

Nicolai Ouroussoff, architecture critic for The New York Times, argues that the time is right for a new vision of rebirth for America's ailing cities. He applies this new vision to the challenges of New Orleans, Los Angeles, the Bronx, and Buffalo.

March 30 - The New York Times

Small farms are getting some attention from the Obama Administration, but what's still holding them back is the proper infrastructure, according to this piece from <em>Citiwire</em>.

March 30 - Citiwire

Paul Goldberger looks at the two new baseball stadia opening in New York this Spring.

March 30 - The New Yorker

This piece from the <em>San Francisco Chronicle</em> takes readers inside the world of a historical ecologists -- one who tries to document what landscapes used to be and how they've evolved over time.

March 30 - San Francisco Chronicle

L.A. is boiling with billboard drama right now. <em>Los Angeles Times</em> architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne looks at the debate and argues that signage can have a positive role in the urban landscape.

March 30 - Los Angeles Times

The entire country is in recession, but the nation's ports are experiencing a flood of interest from investors, according to this article from <em>Reason</em>.

March 30 - Reason Foundation

BLOG POST

Over a year ago <a href="/node/28197" target="_blank">I blogged about</a> a conference of urban historians where the group debated a talk, titled &quot;Whither the Region?,&quot; where historian Greg Hise observed the group was talking about regional history less. In my response, I suggested several causes: limited decision-making at the regional level in America, center city biases among historical sources like newspapers, and metropolitan areas growing to encompass entire regions due to urban sprawl. I also observed that although it may go <em>unstudied</em> by the group, a good number of regional planning organizations and agencies do exist.<br />

March 29 - Robert Goodspeed

In this testimonial to Congress, the Brookings Institution's Robert Puentes argues that housing and transportation are irreversibly linked and that, in the face of the current recession, more integrated planning is needed.

March 29 - Brookings

Global water shortages are an issue the Obama Administration will need to address, according to this piece from <em>Citiwire</em>.

March 29 - Citiwire