The Daily Source of Urban Planning News

<p>Global warming is exacerbating the erosion of the Alaskan coastline, but no agency has taken the lead in addressing the issues of land depletion and community relocation. One village's struggles may set the rule for future relocations.</p>

September 19 - Anchorage Daily News

<p>In an effort to avoid the extra costs associated with electrifying trains and building overhead wiring systems, transportation planners are backing a plan to develop a 41-mil commuter rail line in Denver with diesel-powered trains.</p>

September 19 - The Denver Post

<p>Government planners in China are proposing a megacity merger between Hong Kong and neighboring Shenzhen to create a metropolis of more than 20 million people, but some fear the metropolis would be too big.</p>

September 19 - BBC

<p>Increasing development in California's Sierra Nevada Mountains is adding significantly to the area's fire risk. Some are calling for more scrutiny in the approval of further development in the fire-prone area.</p>

September 19 - The San Francisco Chronicle

BLOG POST

<p>With cities developing today at a rate that is outpacing architects’ and planners’ efforts to shape them, there is no longer sufficient time to plan. As a result, architecture’s role in the city has fundamentally changed from that of designing buildings which both engage and are a product of their context, to that of creating commodified experiences--like everything else, tied first and foremost to speculation in future identity, and real estate values. </p>

September 18 - Roger Sherman

<p>Los Angeles and Orange counties are once again home to the longest amounts of time drivers waste in traffic congestion, at 72 hours per year. Nationally, the average amount of time lost to traffic congestion is 38 hours -- nearly a full week's work.</p>

September 18 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>Rapid development is expected to bring the population of Albuquerque, New Mexico, over the 1 million mark within 15 years.</p>

September 18 - The Albuquerque Tribune

BLOG POST

<p class="MsoNormal"> It&#39;s like something out of a Flannery O&#39;Connor story. The setting is the small town of Natchez, Miss., which was built on an unstable, water-soluble bluff. An entire street, Clifton Avenue, collapsed about 20 years ago. Swallowed up. A few years back—in 1995, to be exact, Sen. Trent Lott urged Congress to shore up the bluff to save not just people—two women died in a 1980 street collapse—but &quot;to protect these historically significant properties and to prevent potential loss of lives,&quot; as he put it. </p>

September 18 - Margaret Foster

<p>Residents in the Bolivian city of Sucre are mounting an effort to have their city regain its status as the country's capital -- a designation is lost in 1899. But the costs of transferring the political infrastructure from La Paz would be immense.</p>

September 18 - International Herald Tribune

<p>The city's lauded framework plan for implementing smart growth practices has failed to deliver on its promises, say some residents and experts.</p>

September 18 - Voice of San Diego

<p>A new study shows that property values have spiked around the proposed parkway, threatening to price lower-income residents out of their homes.</p>

September 18 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

<p>Connecticut could learn a lesson from neighboring New Jersey about how to improve its transit infrastructure.</p>

September 18 - The Hartford Courant

<p>Six years after 9/11, skyscrapers continue to be planned for dozens of American cities.</p>

September 18 - The San Diego Union-Tribune

<p>Literary fans and preservationists push for the recognition and historic designation of a Los Angeles bungalow once occupied by poet and novelist Charles Bukowski. The property is currently up for sale and threatened with demolition.</p>

September 18 - Time

<p>With constant complaints from the public and consistent reports of drug dealing and prostitution, Seattle's automated public toilets may be on their way out.</p>

September 18 - Los Angeles Times via San Francisco Chronicle

<p>A proposal to combine the planning and development services departments could give San Diego's planning director the power to plan for the long-term -- or perhaps lead to more political scandal.</p>

September 18 - San Diego Union Tribune

<p>A plan by city officials to trade public land to a developer in exchange for a new firehouse and library is under fire from residents and activists who believe the deal shortchanges the city.</p>

September 17 - Christian Madera

<p>Forgotten in the ongoing debate about new high-density development is the city's long history of multi-family and mixed-use housing.</p>

September 17 - The Los Angeles Times

<p>Property taxes along Atlanta's proposed Beltline -- a 22-mile loop of park and trails ringing downtown -- are rising sharply, threatening to displace the poor that live in adjacent areas.</p>

September 17 - The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

<p>Buffalo is grappling with a blight of abandoned homes - which are directly correlated to crime rates in neighborhoods. It shares much in common with other cities well past their heyday, such as St. Louis, Detroit, and Youngstown.</p>

September 17 - The New York Times