The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

In contrast to the classic Burnham plea, Andrew M. Manshel says that planning big often misses the essential nature of the urban experience.

October 20 - City Journal

With a recent documentary, Julius Shulman is back in the spotlight. But the uncritical view of Shulman's legacy leaves a lot out, says Christopher Hawthorne.

October 20 - Los Angeles Times

A profile of Alvaro Huerta, the son of Mexican immigrants who is combining his urban planning studies with social activism.

October 20 - UCLA Magazine

A photography show in 1975 is credited with changing the way artists looked at landscape, shifting towards looking at the built environment with a less romantic viewpoint. The original show is back on tour and opens at the LA County Museum of Art.

October 20 - artinfo.com

Cities along the Hudson River in New York are pushing plans to build more docks along the waterfront.

October 20 - The New York Times

The White House is pushing for more solar power projects nationwide, but environmental concerns are stalling the progress of plans to build solar projects in the California desert.

October 20 - The Los Angeles Times

While more residents walk or bike for nonwork trips, Orenco Station residents are still driving to work at a rate comparable to other area suburbs.

October 20 - The Oregonian

New data from the U.S. Census Bureau reveals that the first year of the recession has taken a harsh toll and that these impacts are being particularly felt in three key regions in the country.

October 20 - ABC

This Canadian documentary explores the emerging revolution in human powered transportation [Video].

October 20 - CBC

BLOG POST

<p> City data catalogs are fast moving from the exception to the norm for large U.S. cities.<br /> <br /> Washington, DC&#39;s <a href="http://data.octo.dc.gov/">Data Catalog</a>, spearheaded by former CTO Vivek Kundra, was an early leader. The site combines hundreds of static government-created datasets from across DC government with administrative feeds like the city&#39;s 311 system. Their site emphasizes providing data in multiple formats, including where possible formats that don&#39;t require proprietary software. Kundra&#39;s selection as the nation&#39;s first Chief Information Officer, and launch of the federal government&#39;s <a href="http://www.Data.gov">Data.gov</a> has elevated the principle among the federal government&#39;s vast datasets. DC&#39;s two &quot;apps&quot; contests sought to encourage creative uses of the data made available, and some of which are available at the <a href="http://apps.dc.gov/">DC App Store</a>.<br /> <br /> Beyond DC, many big cities have recently launched or are planning open data catalogs of their own.<br />

October 19 - Robert Goodspeed

A small village founded in Colombia in the 1960s as an experiment in sustainable agriculture is still thriving. Experts like Amory Lovins are paying Gaviotas a visit to learn their secrets.

October 19 - The New York Times

The commercial real estate crash is coming and isn't pretty, but ULI senior fellow Stephen Blank and others say it won't be nearly as bad as the collapse of the residential housing market.

October 19 - Cleveland Plain Dealer

Cities are struggling with the right way to control bicycle traffic in a system built for cars. Should bicycles act like cars? Or should roads change to meet the special needs of bicycles?

October 19 - Slate.com

BLOG POST

<p> A few days ago, I was trying to take a streetcar in Toronto- and the streetcar was just as congested as any suburban arterial. The lines in front of streetcars were so long that I couldn&#39;t get into the first streetcar. Or the second. Or the third. Instead, I had to wait a few minutes (horrors!) for the fourth streetcar. </p> <p> I asked myself: what if streetcars only ran every hour, instead of every few minutes? Would the streetcars be equally crowded? Of course not. People would abandon the streetcars and start to use cars (if they owned them) and buy them (if they did not yet own them). </p>

October 19 - Michael Lewyn

Japan wants to end its spending on wasteful construction projects, which are the cause of the country's massive debt. But for one small town on the verge of losing a dam, the "wasteful" project is the center of the local economy.

October 19 - The New York Times

That's the slogan seen on t-shirts around Jane Jacobs beloved Greenwich Village, where some locals feel high-end chains are ruining the neighborhood.

October 19 - Jeremiah's Vanishing New York

The City of Odense, Denmark has submitted a new master plan that guides development to make the city carbon-neutral by 2025.

October 19 - Sustainable Cities DK

Housing development, architecture and community building have found a new learning lab in the lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.

October 19 - The Atlantic

Three-wheeled, alternative energy vehicles like the Aptera may soon qualify for funding from the Dept. of Energy.

October 19 - autobloggreen.com

Jeffersonville, Indiana is proposing to turn a district with a bad flooding problem into a beautiful canal with a pedestrian promenade.

October 19 - The Architect's Newspaper