The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

Between the spike in gas prices in 2008 and the current recession, the RV industry is in serious trouble as the market for enormous homes on wheels dries up.

March 20 - Salon.com

Regional Plan Association of New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut has mapped out the impact of all MTA's service cuts for every State Assembly and Senate district in the region. There's also an interactive Google Map.

March 20 - Regional Plan Association

In a discussion about how graveyards fit into new forms of urbanism, James Howard Kunstler predicts that city planning departments are not long for this world.

March 20 - Whistling Past the Graveyard

Robin Hood Gardens is a 70s era, Brutalist public housing complex. Preservationists say it is historic; the government wants to tear it down. Reporter Nicolai Ouroussoff pays the project a visit to determine for himself.

March 20 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

<p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">The planning profession’s ambivalence toward Houston has always been a little frustrating. In part, the profession’s attitude is understandable. Houston hasn’t embraced planning’s conventions, so why should the profession embrace Houston? </span> </p> <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Times New Roman">Fair enough. But the downside is losing the opportunity to look at core issues and problems from a completely different lens. This is especially true when it comes to housing development where Houston performs remarkably better than its peers.</span> </p>

March 20 - Samuel Staley

Renters are the hidden victims of the foreclosure crisis: they are usually the last to know about foreclosure, have few resources to assist them and are being overlooked by federal interventions. But community organizers are fighting back.

March 20 - Dollars and Sense

As foreclosures spread throughout California's Inland Empire, empty homes need to be cleaned and maintained. To meet the demand, an industry is rapidly expanding.

March 20 - The New York Times

Officials in North Texas showed significant support yesterday for legislation to raise money for billions of dollars in road and rail improvements.

March 20 - The Star-Telegram

Duke Energy hopes to tap $3.4 billion of stimulus funds to build the nation's first clean coal plant, burning the coal in a gaseous form and storing the CO2 emissions. It already has received federal funds to build the $2.35 coal power plant in IN.

March 20 - The New York Times: Energy & Environment

Paul Smalera sees in the the ghost towers of Bangkok a disturbing warning for economically distressed urban developments in the United States.

March 20 - Slate

"Blueprint America" looks at declining public transit subsidies and resulting transit service cuts. The video and report follows two East Bay commuters on suburban bus, BART; the transit agency meeting where bus service is reduced; MUNI LRT footage.

March 20 - PBS-The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

Nine-month study commissioned by President Nicolas Sarkozy aims to transform Paris and its surrounding suburbs into the first sustainable “post-Kyoto" city.

March 19 - The New York Times

BLOG POST

We Americans love a discount. Wal-Mart and the discount retail boom are proof enough of that. What we love even more, though, is free stuff. Just slap the word &quot;free&quot; before almost anything and we&#39;ll line up.<br /> <br /> This mentality represents some challenges for cities, but also some opportunities. The challenge is that if people don&#39;t have to pay for something, they probably won&#39;t. And the opportunity is that if people don&#39;t have to pay for something, they&#39;re way more likely to want it. Let&#39;s think of this concept in terms of three innately American traditions: pancakes, mobility, and beer.<br />

March 19 - Nate Berg

In the next few months, the Dutch capital will make numerous changes to make its infrastructure greener. With the help of private companies like Cisco and IBM, Amsterdam is closer to becoming a "smart city" than any other in Europe.

March 19 - BusinessWeek

Habitat for Humanity, known for building low-cost, affordable houses, has taken to deconstructing homes in Saginaw, MI. Reselling the materials and building smaller homes in their stead make more sense than rehabilitating an old house, they say.

March 19 - The New York Times

The city of Waco, Texas, imposes limits on new billboards--hoping to reduce its overall inventory with a "cap and replace" strategy.

March 19 - News 8 Austin

Have high-speed rail stimulus funds put us any closer to technology like mag-lev? A long record of underfunding makes many of such projects shovel-unready, but hopes are still high.

March 19 - Miller-McCune

In the latest episode of his podcast, James Howard Kunstler provides commentary on the urbanism of Paris. By following along with Google Street View, you can walk the streets and see what he sees.

March 19 - KunstlerCast

Envisioning a form of government more efficient to strategically invest scarce local, state and federal dollars is at the heart of such a proposal.

March 19 - Albany

Colorado law prohibits the collection of rainwater, but urban farmers, environmentally-conscious homeowners, and even developers are catching on to its benefits and building momentum for the legalization of rainwater harvesting.

March 19 - Los Angeles Times